Harry Potter and the Seer of Time
by Akirina
Summary: Adopted: Alt Universe - Harry Potter is a very strange child. He KNOWS things. Things he shouldn't know. What if Harry was born with a powerful seer's sight? Intelligent, driven, independent, parselmagic, parselmouth. A do-over sort of story, but not.
1. Prologue

**Title: Harry Potter and the Seer of Time**

**Author: Athey [previously Aya Macchiato]**

**Adopter: Akirina**

**Summary: Alt Universe - Harry Potter is a very strange child. He KNOWS things. Things he shouldn't know. What if Harry was born with a powerful seers sight? intelligent, driven, independent, parselmagic, parselmouth. A do-over sort of story, but not.**

**Adopter's notes: Hey guys, this story is adopted from Aya Macchiato, currently Athey. I've got her permission to continue her story, so I'll be posting the chapters from her work and I will add on to the chapters. **

**I haven't done any editions to the 18 chapters+prologue she wrote, so Chapter 19 onwards is all mine. I hope it's alright... I did an alteration of this fanfiction, though. There were a few weaknesses in the original plotline and I was considering doing a whole new version of this. However, I decided to stick with this and finish up the original work before I started on my version of how events would have turned out.**

**I hope that I will be able to do a good job of finishing this story, seeing as it is a different writing style and I am not sure whether I will be able to do a satisfactory job of portraying Harry as Athey did. So please be patient with me and if there are any areas I can touch up on, review please! Also, I will be uploading very slowly because it's the exams now and I have left this aside for quite some time. Updates will not be frequent because I am graduating this year, too. So I'm sorry if this story goes for one or two months without any updates!**

**And lastly, enjoy!**

**Akirina**

* * *

**Prologue**

Harry Potter was a very _strange_ child. He had always been different. In fact, he had realized at a very very young age that he was different, but he didn't honestly care much.

You see, Harry _knew_ things. Things that no small child should know. He also acted very oddly for a child. He was often very quiet, with a distant, thoughtful expression on his face. He would sit in silence, staring off into the distance, doing absolutely nothing for hours. Sometimes he would crack a smile, or even giggle lightly. Other times he would scowl or look sad, for apparently no reason at all.

Harry Potter lived with his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, and their son, Dudley, because his own parents had died when he was just over a year old.

His Aunt and Uncle had told him that his parents died in a car crash, but Harry knew that wasn't the truth. He never told them he knew, or how he knew however, because honestly... he just _did_.

Vernon and Petunia Dursley prided themselves in being as plane, normal, and boring as possible. Anything strange or out of the ordinary was the worst sort of thing, and since Harry was so obviously _odd_, they absolutely despised having to care for the boy.

For the first five years of his life spent with the Dursley's, Harry's 'bedroom' was actually the cupboard under the stairs. As soon as he was tall enough to reach, he was forced to do the cooking and cleaning around the house, and was only fed table scraps, while the Dursley's spoiled their own chubby little Dudders, rotten.

And yet, oddly enough, Harry never lashed out at his Aunt and Uncle. He never spoke ill to them, or protested his treatment. He took care of his tasks quickly and without any argument.

His exceptionally odd reactions only put the Dursley's off, even more. They knew that Harry was destined to be as freakish and unnatural as his parents had been, but his behavior was too strange to be explained by that alone. There was clearly something _more_, wrong with the boy.

One morning, during the summer that Harry would turn six years old, an event took place that would begin a string of events that would change the way the Dursley's treated Harry, for the rest of his life.

Vernon Dursley was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper, while Petunia sat fussing with Dudley's hair. Harry was standing on a step stool at the stove, fixing the eggs and bacon for his relative's breakfast.

After bringing the food to the table, Harry sat perfectly still in his seat, with that strange vacant look in his eyes while he seemed to stare at a distant spot on the flowered wallpaper. The Dursley's all filled up their plates, leaving nothing but tiny scraps for Harry. Once they were all done loading up their plates, Harry took what was left and began to eat.

Vernon was muttering things about the economy and finances as he looked over the business section of the paper. Eventually his mutterings shifted to Harry and the financial burden he put on their family. This was a very common complaint of Vernon's. Of course, Harry was hardly a financial burden at all since he barely ate anything, they never bought him any toys, and all of his clothes were hand-me-downs from Dudley. But that would never stop Vernon from complaining about the boy.

Vernon grumbled, once again, about how Harry was a freeloader and didn't do enough to warrant his expense to their family.

Harry looked at his uncle with a critical eye for a moment and the intense gaze caught Vernon's eye and startled him deeply. Harry's eyes were rarely that focused and the look to the strange boy was extremely unnerving.

"What the devil are you looking at boy!" Vernon bellowed, angrily.

Harry was quiet for a moment, and the intense gaze of his piercing green eyes, combined with the strange silence sent a shiver down Vernon's spine.

"Can I look at your paper?" Harry asked suddenly.

The request was so strange and unexpected that Vernon handed the paper over without a word. He just stared at the boy in stunned silence.

Harry took the paper, stood up and walked to the counter, picking up a pen and looking critically at the page in front of him for a moment before writing several things on it. He set that page aside and flipped to a different section and wrote a few other things.

The three Dursley's sat in bewildered silence, staring at the extremely odd boy, unsure of what to do. Even Vernon was too shocked and confused to yell at Harry for his odd behavior.

Harry had never done anything like this before, and they couldn't imagine what on earth it could mean.

Harry took the two pages that he had marked, folded them so that only the portion that he had worked on was displayed and walked back over to the table, handing them to his uncle.

"What the devil is this?" Vernon sputtered taking the pages.

"One is the sports section. I've listed what the scores will be for those games," Harry said, reaching over and pointing at the list of different professional games that would be coming up in the next few weeks.

Vernon's eyes widened and his face began to shift slightly purple.

"There, in the section on the horse races, I circled the horses that would win certain races, and noted beside the horse's name what races they would win," Harry continued, pointing to a different section of the paper. "And the other page is the business section. You invest in Cunnings Motors, right?"

Vernon's mouth hung open slightly and he did not respond but Harry continued anyway.

"You should sell by the middle of next month. They're going to loose a bidding war or something, and their stock will drop a bunch. You'd do better to move all of your investment in Cunnings over to Stark and Sterling Corp. They're in the middle of a buyout, but no one knows it yet. Once it's done any of their stock will be worth twice as much. You've got two weeks before you really need to worry about the stock stuff, and you can use the sporting events to confirm what I'm saying is accurate."

Harry smiled softly, shrugged, and went back to eating his food as if he hadn't done a single thing out of the ordinary.

It was probably the most that Harry had spoken to his relatives in a single setting... _ever._ Compound to that, the oddly _adult_ way he spoke, and the subject matter he spoke of... Vernon sat entirely dumbfounded for a moment before he shook himself and looked down at the papers sitting in front of him.

His initial instinct was to be angry and yell at the boy. That was quickly replaced with horror at the boys unnaturalness, and worries that what Harry had said had to be related to his particular oddity. But then another voice began to grow in the back of his mind. The greedy part.

_What if...?_

Two weeks later, Vernon sat at the kitchen table, early in the morning before anyone else had come down yet, pondering what he was going to do. Harry had not said a single exceptionally odd thing since the initial incident with the newspaper two weeks prior. He had gone back to his normal, abnormal behavior.

Vernon had kept the two pages of newsprint with him and had checked the results of every one of the listed sporting events. Initially he did this with great embarrassment. He would have ignored the entire bewildering event but his greedy nature overpowered the part of him that wanted to pretend that it had never happened and he had sat himself in front of the telly that night to watch the sports newscaster as he discussed the games that had taken place that day and their scores.

They were exactly as the boy had said.

Another of the listed games took place three days later, and again, the scores were exact. Vernon left the house in secret to attend the horse races that took place that following weekend and after the first race Harry listed turned out exactly as the boy had predicted, Vernon placed bets on each subsequent race, and won.

Vernon's hateful glares at the boy had shifted during this passage of time. Instead of utter disgust, his eyes were narrowed with suspicion and curiosity.

Was it perhaps possible that the boy could actually be of some use?

They had been forced into this situation by the frighteningly odd old man who had insisted that Harry had to stay with a blood relative if he were to remain safe. Safe from _what_, Vernon truly had no idea, but he knew he didn't like the idea of the freak being anywhere near his family. Not only because of some slim chance that the boy posed a danger to them, but also the worry that his oddities could some how _rub off_ on their precious Dudders.

His presence had been nothing more than a thorn in Vernon's side for the past five years and he had never seen even the slightest value in having to take the wretched boy in. Could the horrid child finally prove to be worth something?

Vernon got up and walked into the hall and unlocked the door to the cupboard that Harry called his room, but didn't bang on the door and yell as was normal.

Harry emerged from his 'room' a moment later and went to the bathroom to complete his morning business before entering the kitchen where Vernon had resumed his previous seat. Harry didn't begin preparing breakfast as he normally would. Instead he joined his uncle at the table and sat down quietly to watch Vernon patiently.

Nearly five minutes passed in utter silence before Vernon Dursley raised his head and looked at the boy through narrow, critical eyes.

"How'd you do it, boy?" he asked in a low tone.

"I see things," Harry replied simply.

Vernon's eyes narrowed even further and he rose one eyebrow.

"What _sort_ of things?"

"Things that haven't happened yet, and sometimes things that happened a long time ago," Harry shrugged. He looked away with distant unfocused eyes locked on the wall as his head cocked slightly to the side. "I see them mostly in my dreams. But lately I've started to figure out how to see some things when I'm awake. I'm getting so I can control it now too. Or I can try to, at least."

Vernon gawked at Harry for a moment. He could feel his blood pressure rising at the implications of what Harry was suggesting, but forced himself to push his initial responses aside. There was potential here. If he let his anger and disgust for the boy's oddness win, he could be missing out on an incredible opportunity.

Vernon was about to open his mouth when Harry cut him off and continued.

"I know I'm different. I know my parents were different too," Harry said, his bright green eyes piercing right through his uncle. At these words Vernon's jaw snapped shut and his eyes widened. "I want Dudley's second bedroom, and new clothes that are my own. I want to be able to eat more than the scraps left over from Dudders. In exchange, every morning I will mark up your paper with anything that seems important."

Vernon's jaw slowly dropped open as he sat there stunned and listened to the small boy make his demands.

"Should I stick to the horse and greyhound races, and football, or should I focus on the business section?" the small boy asked. His words didn't seem to match his innocent, youthful appearance, and young voice. It was an oddly unnatural experience and it sent shivers through Vernon's very being.

Harry's eyes unfocused and his head tilted slightly to the side again. Vernon stiffened at the behavior that he was slowly beginning to recognize, and waited for the boy's focus to return to him.

"How about the National Lottery?"

"What?" Vernon sputtered.

"It'll draw more attention... but it'll be a one time thing and you won't have to go down to the tracks every week for the races. If you keep that up too much the neighbors might start to thing you have a gambling problem. Plus the bookmakers will start to notice after a while that you're always winning. I'm not positive I can do it, but I think I can get you the numbers to the lottery. We'd really only be able to get away with that once. If you kept getting winning lottery tickets it would draw attention."

Vernon gaped at the boy, but slowly a fire began to burn deep in his chest as his spinning mind began to wrap itself around the prospects placed before him.

His lips curled up into wicked grin.

"So, do we have a deal?" Harry asked, drawing his uncles attention back to him.

Vernon looked speculatively at Harry for a moment before nodding his head. Harry reached across, offering his hand. Vernon looked at it, slightly horrified at the prospect of having to touch the boy, but finally reached out and took a hold of the small hand and shook it.

Harry gave his relatives smaller things for the first two months. He stuck to stock tips and sporting results. He wasn't willing to hand over anything huge, _like winning lottery numbers_, until he'd gotten what _he_ wanted. He was moved out of the tiny, spider-filled cupboard into Dudley's second bedroom, and provided with a new wardrobe and some actual toys for the first time in his life.

The toys weren't terribly fancy, and weren't even remotely comparable to the things that Dudley got on a daily basis, but Harry really wasn't interested in those.

Vernon and Petunia instructed their son to stop his assaults on Harry, and to instead simply stay as far away from the boy as possible during the weekdays when they returned to school that fall.

Dudley and his over-sized bully-friends stopped in their efforts to scare off anyone who would attempt to get anywhere near the odd boy, but that didn't mean he was suddenly able to make friends. This didn't seem to bother Harry, as he wasn't making any attempts to make friends anyway.

By the end of September of that year, Harry gave Vernon the numbers to the next national lottery draw.

The ticket got him £200,000 and Vernon was beyond ecstatic.

The following spring Harry expressed the desire to begin taking karate, and while Vernon's instinctive reaction was to refuse, he held his tongue and permitted it. Harry had continued to give Vernon advice on when to sell any of his stock holdings, and whenever a particularly smart investment cropped up. As long as the boy was earning him more money than Vernon would have ever expected to make without him, he was more than willing to bend to the few, meager, requests the boy made.

Harry never made any unreasonable demands. Honestly, he could have asked for much, much more, and Vernon still would have easily agreed.

Harry rarely asked for toys. He wanted freedom to roam, and occasionally asked for some money of his own so he could take care of his own shopping. When Petunia would enter his room, she found mostly books littering his shelves and floor.

Harry still prepared breakfast and did the dishes for each meal, but Petunia took care of dinner, and all of the laundry. With their new financial comfort, they hired a gardener to take care of the yard.

One day during the spring of Harry's 8th year, Petunia entered Harry's room to collect his clothes and her eyes were drawn to an odd looking book that sat atop a tall stack of equally odd looking books on his small wooden desk.

It was a very old looking book with tattered binding that looked like it should be falling apart, and yet it was oddly enough, _not_.

_'Unfogging the Future'_by Cassandra Vablatsky

She pushed the book aside and read the title of the book beneath it. _'The Dark Forces: A guide to Self-Protection'_ by Quentin Trimble. She shoved it aside next to find _'Magical Theory'_ by Adalbert Waffling beneath it.

"Aunt Petunia?"a voice said from behind her, causing Petunia to jump and spin around. She stared down at her small nephew with wide horrified eyes.

"Where did you find these books?" she hissed in a whisper.

Harry shrugged and walked around her to his desk, returning it to the state it was in before his aunt entered.

"Muggles never realize what they have when they come into possession of things like this. They get sorted into the fantasy section of used book stores, but if you know what to look for, they're not that hard to find," Harry said, nonchalantly.

Petunia feared her heart would pound right out of her chest as she heard _that word_ uttered by her freak nephew.

_Muggle._

_How did he find out?_ But then again, how the blazes did he know _any_ of the freakish things he knew?

A stunned moment passed before Petunia regained enough of her composure to speak again.

"You're not allowed to... to... There are laws! You're under age, and... and we don't want any of that... _unnaturalness_ under our roof," she hissed.

"You mean _magic_?" Harry said, turning around and raising an eyebrow at his aunt; a slightly wry grin on his lips.

Petunia bristled and her nostrils flared.

"You do realize that it was magic that won Uncle Vernon the lottery two years ago, don't you? I mean, it's not the normal type of magic; no wand waving or spells, but it's still magic. Most can't do what I do," Harry said, and his eyes grew distant for a moment before he chuckled and shrugged. "I guess I'm a freak among freaks. But it doesn't matter anyway."

Harry stepped away from his desk and stood beside his open bedroom door and looked at his aunt expectantly.

"Don't worry. I won't be doing any _under-aged_ magic here. At least, none of the kind that anyone can detect. But that doesn't mean I can't _read_ about it. No harm in owning a few books, is there?"

Petunia's mouth floundered as she stared at the extraordinarily odd spawn of her freak sister.

"I've got class tonight," Harry said, his eyes narrowing slightly in annoyance. "I need to change into my gi. Do you mind?"

Petunia nodded hesitantly and walked out the room slowly, never removing her eyes from Harry until she was out of the room, and he closed the door behind her.


	2. Book 1: Gringotts

**Chapter 1: Gringotts [Year 1]**

It was very early and the air was crisp with fall chill. Harry was jogging around the large park not far from the Dursley's house on Privet drive as he did every morning that he could manage it. The cold in the air was starting to get to his lungs and he trotted off the path and sat down beside a large Oak tree, panting lightly.

Puffs of misty breath escaped his mouth as he calmed his breathing and rubbed his hands together to warm them.

Halloween was only five days away. Harry hated Halloween. He was nine years old now, and every Halloween for the last 8 years, Harry had had the exact same nightmare. Or vision. He was never sure which this one qualified as.

It didn't entirely make sense for it to be a memory. He had only been 15 months old when his parents were killed, so it didn't make sense for him to be able to remember it with as much vivid detail as he did, so he figured it had to at least partially, be one of his visions.

Harry was pulled from his pondering by the faint sound of hissing from beside him. He looked down and was startled to see the head of a small snake poking out from beneath a bush. It was light grayish-brown and seemed to have a very distinctive black zigzag patten going along it's back. The snake was quite thin and appeared to only be about 15 inches long.

_You're an adder, aren't you?_ Harry asked leaning closer.

The snake's eyes widened and it looked straight at Harry.

_§You are a speaker?§_ the snake hissed back in surprise.

Harry smiled and nodded his head. _§Yup. Although you're the first snake I've ever spoken to. I've known for a long time that I can do this, but I've never actually done it before.§_

_§You are a wizard,§_the snake hissed. It was a statement, not a question.

_§That's right._§

_§I am coldsssss. Would you mind if I came clossser?§_

_§Sure. You won't bite me will you? I mean, I was right about the adder thing, right? You're poisonous.§_

_§SsssYou are right. I am an adder, but I will not bite you as long assss you do not hurt me.§_

_§I won't hurt you, I promise. Come on over.§_ Harry said patting the ground beside him.

The snake slithered out from the bush and stretched it's small body nestled up along the side of Harry's leg.

_§Ssssss much better. Thanksss§_

_§No problem. This is really interesting for me. I've always wondered what it would feel like to actually do this. Speak to a snake, I mean.§_

_§If you've never done it before, how did you know you could?§_

_§I have visions. I guess I'm psychic or something.§_

_§That's a fasscinating ability. I can tell you will be quite powerful when you are grown.§_

_§You're pretty young yourself, aren't you? I mean, adders get much bigger than you are.§_

_§Yesss. I will grow as long as I can survive. I was ssspotted several days ago by a child and it's mother and sssincsse then I have seen several men looking for me. I think they wisssh me harm.§_

_§They're afraid of you? They don't want a poisonous sssnake near a park.§_

_§Yesss. But I have no where to go.§_

_§Would you like to come back with me? I can look after you. You'll have to sstay hidden from my relativess, though.§_

_§Really?§_ the snake rose it's head to look up at Harry with startled wide eyes.

_§You bet. I'd love to have someone I can talk to. I hardly ever talk to anyone, and I have so many ssecrets I can't share with people. It'd be ssafe to tell you because no one else here can speak parssseltongue.§_

_§I will keep your secretssss.§_

_§You'll have to promisse that no matter how nasty my relativess are that you will never bite them.§_ Harry said, looking down at the snake sternly. _§In fact, just promise that you will always stay out of sight of them, all together.§_

_§I ssswear it.§_

_§Okay, ssounds good. I'm Harry by the way. What sshould I call you?§_

_§I do not have a name. You may name me if you wissssh.§_

Harry tilted his head to the side and looked thoughtful for a moment. _§Hmmm... lets see. How about Addy? I mean... well, I guess it's not the most original name, but...§_

_§I likesss it.§_

Harry smiled down at the snake. _§Great. Okay, I'll call you Addy.§_

– – –

The warm July morning dawned bright and sunny. Harry opened his bleary eyes and smiled to himself.

_Today it begins,_ he thought to himself. It was a week before his 11th birthday and he knew that something great would be happening that day.

He got out of bed and made his way into the bathroom to do his morning business and shower. He returned to his room and opened his closet to check on Addy in her aquarium.

Strangely enough, she actually looked even smaller now than she did when Harry first found her. This was because of a magical shrinking charm Harry had placed on her about a year earlier after she had officially became his familiar. She was growing quickly and it had become obvious that she would soon become too large to go unnoticed. Harry realized shortly after the bonding that he could have Addy wrap herself around his forearm and wrist and he could focus his magic through her, in place of a wand, and perform magic. The best part was that this type of magic didn't seem to set off the underage magic trace.

He was never sure _why_ it didn't, but once he had seen in his dreams that it would safe, he quickly began taking advantage of it. The only trick was that he had to speak all of his spells in parseltongue. While this wasn't particularly a problem for him while in private, he knew he couldn't do any of this kind of magic in the presence of other wizards. He'd already had numerous visions of how badly _that_ would end, and he had no desire to experience that in reality.

He knew he would have to expose _that_ particular talent to people very delicately.

Now Addy was a mere 10 inches long and could easily wrap herself around his wrist over his watchband and remain unnoticed by most.

_§Morning Addy,§_ Harry whispered as he dropped in a hard boiled egg and a few crickets into her aquarium and refilled her water dish. She slithered up onto his wrist and he quickly released the stasis charm on the food that he used to keep them from going bad until he needed them, and then she slithered back down into the glass enclosure to catch the hopping crickets.

_§Greetingsss Harry,§_she hissed as soon as she had finished them. She then made her way over and began to devour the egg, whole. Harry grabbed his clothes from the closet and quickly got dressed.

_§Today is the big day, isss it not?§_ Addy hissed once she was finished with her breakfast. Harry beamed at her and nodded his head. _§Do you wisssh me to come with you in case your uncle givesss you trouble about your letter?§_

_§Thanks Addy, but it'll be fine. I've already seen it. I'll come back and get you after breakfast and we can go for our jog.§_

Addy nodded her head and Harry stood up and left, going down to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

Oddly enough, Harry had grown to rather enjoy cooking breakfast. Especially now that he was allowed to eat as much of it as he needed instead of only getting the scraps left from his relatives.

Since cooking for the Dursley's was no longer something that he _had_ to do, but rather something that he willingly did, it didn't feel like such a burden. And at least he wasn't expected to cook for every cooking breakfast gave him time to think and clear his mind. He would slip into the familiar motions and let his mind disconnect so he could process his dreams from the previous night.

He'd had rather nice dreams that night. He was never sure what to expect each night when he fell asleep. He didn't really have much control over his dreams, like he had developed of his waking preminitions. But the dreams were so much more useful to him. His dreams taught him things, and went so much further into the future than his waking visions ever let him.

Breakfast was almost done cooking and his 'family' made their way into the dining room.

As was usual, they didn't even make eye contact with him. He didn't mind. He knew it could have been much worse. His life could have been much harder and far more miserable than it was. He would never regret his decision to assist his rotten Uncle with his finances. Once Vernon saw Harry as more than a freeloader, and instead as a valuable commodity, his relatives actually began to treat Harry with some level of civility. They still hated him for his freakish nature, but at least they didn't hit him.

Harry brought the food to the table, but didn't sit down. A moment later Vernon glanced up and instructed Harry to go collect the post.

Harry grinned and nodded, racing out of the room. Vernon looked up at the retreating form of his nephew with suspicion, and glanced over at his wife who had an equally concerned look on her face.

It wasn't normal for Harry to do much of anything in front of them with any level of enthusiasm.

Harry came to a stop in front of the door and stooped down to pick up the pile of letters that sat on the floor beneath the mailbox slot.

He quickly shuffled through the letters until he found the one he was looking for. A wide smile spread across his face as he looked at the yellowish parchment envelope addressed to him, and sealed shut in red wax, stamped with the emblem for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry returned to the kitchen and placed the pile of letters in front of his uncle before focusing his attention on the remaining letter in his hands.

Dudley had gotten used to his cousin being exceptionally odd over the years and had learned to ignore anything he did at the kitchen table, so he was oblivious to Harry, but Vernon and Petunia were _not._ They looked on, in horror, as their nephew looked down reverently at the envelope in his hands as he opened it.

Harry was reading through the first page, not even pausing to look up when he spoke out, causing his aunt and uncle to jump in surprise.

"Uncle Vernon, I'm going to need to go to London this weekend. Do you think you can give me a ride, or do I need to take the train?" Harry asked, his eyes still glued to the paper.

"What the blazes do you need to go to London for?" Vernon bellowed weakly, with hesitation clear in his voice. He _knew_ what that letter was and it horrified him.

"I need to go shopping for my school supplies," Harry replied simply, flipping to the second page of his letter.

"It's _that_ school, isn't it?" Petunia asked with disgust clear in her voice.

Dudley looked up from his mountain of pancakes and looked around the table confused.

"We won't be paying to send you off to that place! I refuse!" Vernon sputtered.

"You don't have to Uncle Vernon," Harry said flatly, rolling his eyes. "It's already paid for."

"Already paid for? How the devil could it be?"

"My parents had a trust set up for me before they died. It was specifically established for when I attend Hogwarts and includes my tuition and expenses for books," Harry replied smoothly, finally looking up from his letter.

Dudley looked exceptionally confused now. No one _ever_ mentioned Harry's parents. The topic had been taboo for as long as Dudley could remember. It was almost as taboo as talking about his cousin's strange ability to always know what was coming before it happened.

"And how the devil do you know that?" Vernon yelled.

Harry merely cocked a single eyebrow at his uncle as if to say '_do you honestly have to ask that?'_

Vernon's face went red, but he quickly clamped his mouth shut and glared at the boy in front of him.

"I'm fine with taking the train if you have no interest in driving me. I don't expect you to come with me into the shopping district anyway. I know how unpleasant that would be for you," Harry said sarcastically, returning his attention to his book list. "But I would appreciate a ride to the train station and back again when I return from London. I'll probably have a large trunk with me and it would be a real nuisance to try and drag it the ten blocks back to the house."

Vernon looked up and glared at his nephew, trying to hold back the nasty retorts that wanted to spew from his mouth. Despite the incredible financial usefulness the boy had presented over the years, Vernon still could not stand the very very _weird_ little boy.

"I'll be returning from the train station at 5:24pm. Can you be there to pick me up?" Harry asked, looking up and meeting eyes with his uncle.

Vernon grumbled and his face contorted with barely controlled rage, but finally he nodded his head and made a noise that could be interpreted as a yes.

"Good. Thanks," Harry said with a kind smile that didn't really meet his eyes, and setting the letter aside so he could begin eating his breakfast.

– – –

The 31st of July dawned and Harry once again woke with a bright smile. He'd had pleasant dreams again, which was always nice. Dreams of simple times. They were always welcome. So many of his dreams were consumed by darkness and violence lately. His dreams had been reaching further and further into the future this last year. The farthest he had seen was a few days during his 17th year on this earth. He'd only gotten the tiniest of bits and pieces from that far ahead. Just a day here and there. Just a few _really significant_ events. And a few really _violent_ ones.

He didn't expect things to play out the same as his visions though. He figured it was primarily why he could see so little from that far into the future. The chances of any of those events actually taking place were slim to none. Harry would make too many different choices for the later events he had seen to have any chance of happening.

Harry had come to determine that everything was about _choice_. Sure, there were to be some events that seemed fated to happen, but most events were controlled more by choice and action, and occasionally by random chance.

Every different choice made changed everything. His dreams seemed to show him the most likely outcome that would happen, but once Harry saw those outcomes, the chances of them actually happening were virtually nil, since seeing them would change his mind about what to do. Knowing what he now knew, he would _choose_ differently and everything would change.

Today was a prime example of things working out differently than he had once seen.

Many many years ago when he was still very small, and still living inside a cupboard, Harry had dreamed about this day. Only when he first saw it, it had taken place after his uncle had gone on a mad dash cross country in an attempt to escape an army of post owls, that resulted in the group of them huddled in a shack on a rock surrounded by water.

This was the day that Harry would have met the half-giant that Harry knew would one day be a very good friend. But because of the different choices that Harry had made over the years, events had turned out entirely differently.

Harry would still meet Hagrid today. He would just have to work at making sure it happened. It was one of the main reasons that Harry had decided to do his shopping in Diagon Alley on his birthday.

Harry got up and greeted Addy, who wished him a happy birthday, making him smile. He fed her, showered, dressed, fixed breakfast and returned to his room to collect her and go jogging.

He had been debating between whether or not he should take Addy with him to Diagon Alley. On one hand, he'd never actually _used_ a wand before, and doubted he could do much of any magic with one at this point. He'd already seen that it would take him some time and practice to get used to one. Plus, if he did any magic with one it could set off the underage magic trace and potentially get him in trouble. Having Addy available so he could shrink his trunk would be very handy. Not to mention the fact that he always felt safer having her around in case he needed to defend himself. He didn't see anything going wrong today, but Harry had learned that events had a way of even surprising _him_ from time to time. He was never wise to rely too heavily on his visions. He did not always see everything.

But having her with him would undeniably present the temptation to _use magic._ Using his parsel magic was a risky endeavor on a normal basis, but using it when other wizards were around was just stupid. If anyone saw, it would _not_ be pleasant.

Finally he decided to not risk it and to just purchase a trunk that was charmed to be light. He bid Addy farewell and got his irritated and obviously very reluctant uncle to drive him to the train station and give him enough money for his fare.

Anhour later and Harry found himself stepping out of the train station in London and hailing a taxi.

The driver looked at Harry funny, obviously wondering about the young boy, traveling the streets of London unchaperoned, but Harry paid him no mind.

Harry directed the man as to Charring Cross Road and exactly where to drop him off, and upon his arrival, paid him in the cash that he had gotten from his Uncle Vernon.

The taxi pulled away, leaving Harry to stand on the street, looking up at the rather run-down looking building that none of the people walking past seem to be able to see. A sign overhead said '_The Leaky Cauldron'_. Harry's smile widened even more at finally seeing the place in person and quickly walked inside. He kept his head down, trying to avoid anyone's gazes and made his way quickly out the back to the little courtyard and the blank brick wall.

He stared at it, slightly puzzled for a moment. He didn't have a wand yet, and has no idea how to open the gateway without one. He wondered for a moment if he should have kept Addy with him just for this, but didn't think that taping a snake head against the bricks would work... not to mention the attention _that_ would draw. He wondered suddenly what muggleborns did to get in. _Perhaps they're informed in their letters?_

But Harry was supposedly just as good as a muggle born. He was raised by muggles, at least. It seemed he should have been given the same information as one.

But then Harry remembered something about how muggleborns were usually informed in person by one of the school's professors, so that someone was there to explain things to the parents.

Harry twisted up his face in concentration as he pondered this.

Shouldn't a professor have been sent to explain things to him? Sure, in one possible timeline, Hagrid would have come – but that was only after nearly two weeks of unanswered letters, and none of those events had actually taken place. Had the school actually expected the _Dursley's_ to explain the wizarding world to Harry?

Harry coughed a laugh at that thought and shook his head.

He was just about to turn around and go back into the bar to ask someone to help him open the gateway when an elderly couple in robes came out and walked to the wall.

"Need help getting in?" the elderly witch asked Harry. He smiled and nodded his head as he watched the old wizard tap his wand against the bricks in the proper order, causing them to suddenly begin to shift and fold away, revealing the entryway into Diagon Alley.

Harry shouted his thanks and walked forward quickly, beaming at the incredible scene he saw before him. Part of him was sad that he couldn't share this with Addy. He would have to come back with her at some point so she could see it.

All the dreams in the world were nothing in comparison to seeing the real thing, in person.

Harry checked his watch and hurried down the street, making his way to the grand, snowy-white building towering over the intersection between Diagon Alley and Knockturn raced up the stairs and through the large bronze entryway, into Gringotts, the wizarding bank.

Harry had business to do here and he wanted to get it all done before when he knew Hagrid would arrive so he quickly made his way up to one of the empty teller stations.

"How may I be of service?" the goblin asked, looking down at Harry with disdain.

"My name is Harry Potter, and I need to access my vault, and make adjustments to my accounts, but I don't have my key," Harry said.

"We can issue new keys and the old ones will vanish. Wait here a moment," the goblin said as he turned away and flicked his hand, summoning a piece of parchment from a stack behind him. He placed it in front of Harry, on the counter and motioned to a small, sharp pointed object attached to the counter.

"Prick your finger and place a drop of blood on this parchment," he instructed and Harry quickly did so.

The moment the blood touched the paper, it was absorbed into it and the print _Harry James Potter_ appeared.

"Very well. Wait here a moment and I will return with your new key," the goblin said as he began to turn away.

"Wait, I'm sorry, but would it be possible to get the keys to both of my vaults? The trust vault as well as the family vault?" Harry asked.

The goblin rose a single eyebrow and paused. "I will check the specifications of the vault. It is possible that the family vault will not open for you until you are of age."

"That would be the case if there were any other living relatives left in the Potter line, but there aren't. I'm the last one left, so I'm pretty sure I have access to it, even now."

"I will check," the goblin sneered before disappearing behind a stack of papers and through a door.

When he returned, he came baring two keys, one far more intricate than the other, and informing Harry that he was indeed correct. Harry had access to_both_ his trust vault and the family vault, but that Harry wouldn't gain control over the investment portfolio until he came of age. Until that time, the goblins would continue to manage it for him.

Harry was fine with that, as he really didn't care much about the money. He was far more interested in the _objects_ stored within his family vault.

Before being taken down, he arranged with the goblin to setup a bottomless money pouch attached to his trust account. It had an initial cost, and then a small monthly fee, but it gave Harry access to the money in his trust vault where ever he was without having to come to the bank in person. All he had to do was speak the amount he needed and reach into the pouch, and that amount would be present.

For an additional fee, he could have gotten a muggle exchange wallet, but he'd earned the Dursley's more than enough muggle money over the years that Harry didn't really see the point. Whenever he needed muggle cash, he could just ask his uncle for some. It angered Vernon greatly, but he couldn't refuse him or else Harry would just stop giving Vernon tips.

Since his money pouch was attached to his trust account, Harry saw no point in going down to that vault, but he still wanted to visit the family vault before leaving.

The cart ride down into the tunnels was exhilarating and Harry laughed and squealed the whole way down. It was so much more fun to experience it in person.

The Potter Vault was quite large and filled to the brim with heirlooms, books, miscellaneous magical trinkets, and unidentifiable objects.

It also had a large bookcase lining one wall with glass casing doors in front of it, and a pedestal sitting in front of it with a single book placed upon it. This was actually the object that he had really come here for.

He'd had dreams about his father and his friends during their time at Hogwarts. They were different then the dreams he had about his own future at Hogwarts since these visions were usually rather brief and from a third party perspective. His dreams about his own future life were from his own perspective and were far more vivid and _real_ feeling. Oftentimes when he woke up from those dreams he had trouble discerning those events as just a vision of something that hasn't actually happened, rather than a memory of a real event. They felt that _real_ to him.

But in his visions of his father he had seen him with this book many times. In his earlier years at Hogwarts, James Potter had snuck into the restricted section of the school's library and gotten caught too many times. His uncle had given him this book so that he could stop breaking school rules just to get at books.

Many of the Potters had had a copy of the Anybook, with access to the library in the vault, but Harry suspected that this was possibly the only one left at the moment. It was connected to this large wall of books through magic. When you opened the book, it appeared blank except for the first few pages, which appeared to be a catalog list of books. All you had to do was tap your wand on the book you wanted, and the Anybook would transform it's blank pages into the contents of that book. It was a fantastic resource. A whole library of books, contained in a single simple book.

Harry picked it up and went to test it out and realized he still didn't have a wand yet. He saw several wands mounted in a case against one of the walls and reached in. He ran his fingers over them, waiting to feel the right sort of buzzing tingle. None of them were very good matches, but that wasn't really necessary for this. He grabbed the closest to right one and tapped it against one of the book titles.

The books interior instantly changed to that book and Harry grinned.

He returned the wand to it's place in the case and, with the Anybook in hand, left the vault.

Harry lingered in the lobby for several minutes once he returned from the vault caverns. Hagrid was down in the vaults at that very moment and should be returning at any moment. Harry was beginning to feel nervous butterflies in his stomach.

First impressions could be very important. He didn't intend to lie to anyone that he wanted to have as a friend, but to come right out and start talking to someone as if he knew them would only put people off him and make them think he was mental.

He went over and over in his mind, trying to plan out how he would greet the half-giant, but knew it was useless. He was terrible about sticking to plans. He knew that once he was standing there, that anything he's planed to say would just flit right out of his head, leaving everything to chance.

You'd think being able to predict things would help him with things like this, and yet it never did.

Harry sighed and shrugged. He'd just be himself and hope for the best.

He turned his head and smiled widely as he saw a rather green-looking Hagrid exiting from the access room to the magical carts and tunnels. He staggered slightly before taking a deep breath and shaking his head.

Harry held in a chuckle. Hagrid really didn't handle the cart travel very well.

The half-giant began to make his way towards the exit, where Harry was currently leaning against the wall.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked, as Hagrid walked past.

"Eh?" Hagrid said, as he stumbled to a stop and looked down at the young boy who had just spoken to him.

"You don't look like you handle the cart travel very well," Harry said, suppressing his grin.

"Oh, yuh... them goblins really like thar speed," Hagrid chuckled.

"I thought it was brilliant. Today was my first time visiting my vault. The cart ride was fun," Harry said, beaming brightly up at Hagrid.

"Yer firs' time, eh?"

"Yeah. I'm Harry, by the way. Harry Potter."

Hagrid's eyes widened and he gaped at Harry for a split second before his mouth spread into a wide smile beneath his enormous bushy beard.

"Harry! Gosh, look at yer! Now that you mention it, I can't believe I din't notice. Yer the spitn' image ah yer da at this age!"

"Really?" Harry asked, grinning. "So you knew my dad?"

"A'course! I'm Rubeus Hagrid. The keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts," Hagrid said, beaming down at Harry.


	3. Book 1: Diagon Alley

**Chapter 2: Diagon Alley **

The two exited the bank and continued to talk for several minutes before agreeing to sit down and have tea once the school year had begun, and finally parting ways.

Once he was alone again, the first place that Harry went was to the local luggage and storage shop. He purchased a rather nice two-compartment trunk that was charmed to feel feather light, no matter how full it was, and to sprout a pair of wheels on one end, and an extendable handle on the other for easy travel. The second compartment, that you got to by turning a dial around the lock three turns to the left and then once to the right, wasn't a storage compartment at all, but rather a magically expanded space that revealed a ladder that lead down into a 8x10x8ft room.

The shop didn't offer any furnishing for the space, so once that was purchased he went to a furniture store and got a small desk, a chair, and a simple cot bed. He knew he couldn't permanently conjure furniture himself yet, but he figured he could at least try to transfigure what he got into something more appropriate once he had determined exactly what he needed later.

He spent several hours walking from one store to the next getting all the supplies listed in his Hogwarts letter, and anything else that caught his fancy, and dropping it down into his trunk once it was purchased.

He got parchments, quills, all of his needed school books, and quite a few others, a couple cauldrons and other needed potion supplies, as well as a rather extensive collection of ingredients from the Apothecary.

He pulled the list of school supplies out of his pocket to see what was left. Robes. He still hadn't gotten any robes. He wandered into Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and glanced around the room.

"Hogwarts, dear?" a squat, smiling witch asked him, once she spotted him.

"Yes ma'am," Harry said, nodding his head.

"Well, come right over here. I've got another young man being fitted right now."

She led him into the back of the shop where a pale boy with a pointed face was being measured by another witch. Harry caught sight of him and almost groaned. He really wasn't ready to deal with this boy yet. He thought that by putting robes off till the end that he'd avoid his run in with the platinum blond boy, but apparently that wasn't to be.

Harry was led to stand on a footstool beside the boy and Madam Malkin slipped a long robe over Harry's head and began to pin it to the right length.

"Hogwarts too?" the boy drawled and Harry sighed, trying to decide how to handle this.

"Yes," Harry replied.

"My father's next door buying books and Mother's up the street looking at wands. Then I'm off to look at racing brooms. Don't see why first years can't have their own broom."

"I imagine the school is afraid the first years will try stuff they're not ready for and just end up falling off and breaking their necks," Harry said with a shrug.

"Well, sure, the ones who've never been on a broom before might do something stupid that, but it's not fair to punish the rest of us just because _some_people don't have access to a proper broom before coming to school."

"I suppose it's just easier for them to make sure everyone has had proper lessons before they let any of the first years into the sky."

"I still hate it. I think I'm going to bully Father into getting me a racing broom and smuggle it in somehow. I've been riding a broom for years. Just because they're afraid that some stupid muggleborn is going to break their neck, doesn't warrant the rest of us suffering."

Harry sighed and shrugged noncommittally.

"Any idea which house you'll end up in?" the boy asked with disinterest.

"Gryffindor, but I'll have to fight the hat for it."

The boy looked over at Harry with a confused look on his face. "What on earth does that mean? Fight the hat? And why would you fight it to end up in_Gryffindor?"_

"I think the hat is going to want to stick me in Slytherin, but my parents were in Gryffindor, and that's where most of my friends will be, so I'd rather end up there."

"And how exactly do you know all that?" the boy asked as he looked at Harry with skeptical eyes.

"I'm sort of a seer. It runs in the family on my dad's side, although I'm the first one in 3 or 4 generations to have it. I have dreams about things that haven't happened yet. I've already seen the sorting, so I know how it'll turn out."

"For real?" the boy asked, far more interest in his expression now. "Then which house will I end up in?"

"Slytherin," Harry said without any pause.

The boy shrugged. "Well, that was pretty obvious."

"Yup," Harry said, rolling his eyes, but the boy didn't seem to notice.

"But if the hat wants to put you in Slytherin, why would you actually want to go into Gryffindor? I really don't understand that."

"The hat will tell me I could go either way, and give me the choice in the end. Actually, in more recent years, my visions have shown the chance of it even suggesting Ravenclaw, but I don't even know what to think of that one."

"At least it's not Hufflepuff," the boy scoffed. "Do you play Quiddtch at all?"

"I was raised by my muggle relatives, so I haven't had the opportunity to. Once I'm able to own my own broom, I hope to give it a try. Maybe next year I'll try out for the school team."

"Raised by muggles?" the boy almost gasped, looking disgusted. "But you're parents were _our_kind, weren't they? You said they were in Gryffindor?"

"They were a witch and a wizard, yes. But my mum was muggle born. It's her muggle sister and her sister's husband who took me in after my parents were killed."

"Oh, sorry," the boy said, not actually sounding sorry at all, but looking down at Harry with an air of superiority now. Harry rolled his eyes and huffed. Chances were that if the pale boy was _sorry_ about anything, it was that Harry had to be raised by Muggle relatives, and not that his parents were murdered.

"How'd they die?" the boy drawled, only slightly interested.

"Voldemort killed them," Harry said nonchelantly. Madam Malkin gasped, and the woman pinning the boy's robs jerked and apparently stuck him with a needle.

"Ow! Watch it, you idiot!" the boy yelped before recovering from the pin prick and returning his stunned attention back to Harry.

Next thing Harry knew, he was being intentionally poked with a pin by Madam Malkin. He jumped and squeaked, looking down at her. "What was that for?"

"Don't say the name!" she hissed.

"I don't see any reason not to," Harry said, looking down at her with annoyance clear in his eyes. "Fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself. If you'd rather, I suppose I could just call him Tom Riddle."

"Tom Riddle?" Draco asked, with confusion clear on his face.

"That's his real name. Tom Riddle."

"I've never heard that," the boy said frowning.

"Most people don't know it. Voldy likes to keep that little detail secret since he was named after his muggle father. Sort of makes him a real hypocrite to go running around talking about pure blood supremacy when he's a halfblood himself."

Draco's eyes couldn't have possibly have gotten any larger, and the two seamstresses seemed to have stopped breathing.

"Admittedly, his mother's side was about as pure as it gets," Harry continued without missing a beat. "In fact, they concentrated so much on keeping their blood pure that they ended up doing a load of inbreeding with first and second cousins, and ended in a right mess. They were called the Gaunts. Last direct line from Salazar Slytherin himself, but they all died out."

"How the ruddy hell could you know that? I've never heard any of that before!" the boy shouted.

"My visions mostly, I suppose. But Dumbledore knows all this too. If you ever asked him, he could confirm it all. Tom Riddle was a student at Hogwarts about fifty years ago, and Dumbledore was his transfiguration teacher, and Horace Slughorn was his potions teacher. Slughorn was head of Slytherin house at the time, and you could write him and confirm it there too.

"Riddle even came back to the school about 25 years ago and applied for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Dumbledore turned him down because he didn't trust him, and ever since the position has been cursed. That's why the school hasn't had a DADA teacher last more than a year or two in ages."

"How could you possibly have that much information on the Dark Lord?" The boy asked. Harry could see skepticism clear on his face, but his curiosity was equally obvious.

"I've kind of had reason to make it my business," Harry shrugged.

"What reason could any young man have for wanting to learn so much about such a horrible subject?" Madam Malkin asked, incredulously.

Harry looked at her blankly for a second before sighing, reaching up and pulling back the tuft of hair covering his forehead, and exposing the scar that Voldemort's killing curse left on him.

The two women gasped and Draco's eyes bugged out for a second before he was able to recover and hide his reaction.

"You're Harry Potter!" he said.

Harry smirked, "And you're Draco Malfoy."

"How'd you know that?"

"I'm a seer, remember."

–

Harry finally escaped from Madam Malkin's with his school robes, and left a very skeptical and bewildered looking Malfoy behind. He made his way towards Ollivander's, and after the initial odd experience of having the silver-eyed wand maker instantly know who he was, and go on a bit of a triad about Harry's parent's wands, Harry interrupted the man's attempts to measure every inch of his body with a magical tape measure, with a question.

"Sir, can I just go over there and grab my wand? I'm running out of time and I don't really have time to go through all of this right now."

"Excuse me?" the man asked, stepping back and looking at Harry oddly.

"I know which one is mine. Can I just go over and grab it?"

"How exactly, is it, that you know which one is yours?" the man asked with a curious sparkle in his strange foggy eyes.

"I just know these things. It's over that way, towards the back," Harry said, pointing in the direction indicated, "towards the top. It's holly with a phoenix feather core; 11 inches."

"Holly and Phoenix feather," Ollivander echoed in whisper. The strange old man began to walk down the ceiling-high wall of wand boxes, towards the area Harry had indicated. He climbed a rolling ladder and quickly returned with a dusty box, all the while, staring at Harry with hard, scrutinizing eyes.

He came to a stop before Harry and opened the box, offering the wand to him.

Harry took a deep breath and reached out for the wand. As his fingers touched the polished wood surface he felt a comfortable warm tingle and smiled._This was right._

"Well, give it a flick," Ollivander whispered.

Harry gave it a quick wrist flick and a beautiful fountain of colored sparks shot out the tip.

"Curious," Ollivander whispered. He narrowed his foggy unblinking eyes on Harry, making the boy fidget somewhat nervously. "The phoenix who gave the feather for that wands core only ever gave one other -"

"And that feather went to Voldemort's wand. I know," Harry said, impatiently. His train would be departing in less than 40 minutes and Harry still had yet to complete his shopping, let alone face London traffic in a taxi back to the station.

As expected, the mention of Voldemort's name resulted in a gasp from the older man but Harry just rolled his eyes.

"Please forgive me, sir, but like I said, I'm in a bit of a hurry. How much for the wand?"

Harry's final stop for the day was the Magical Menagerie to purchase a post owl. As he entered the shop, his eyes instantly landed on a beautiful snowy owl that he had seen in his dreams for years. He smiled widely and walked straight to her cage.

"Hello beautiful," Harry whispered through the cage. "Would it be alright with you if I took you home with me?"

The snowy owl hooted and cocked her head slightly to the side.

"I've got a familiar already, but I'm going to really love you too. She's really nice and I'm sure the two of you will get along great... just don't try to eat her, promise?"

Harry turned to the shop keeper and quickly made his purchases. He left the store the proud owner of a snowy white post owl, a cage, owl treats and supplies. He also picked up some additional food and supplies for Addy while he was at it.

Harry stored his owl and her cage in the room in the second compartment of his trunk so that the taxi driver, and train personnel wouldn't pitch a fit, and made his way out of Diagon Alley.

– – –

_§Do I have to ssstay in the trunk for the entire train ride?§_ Addy whined as she watched Harry stuffing the last of his things into the first compartment of his trunk.

Harry sat back on his heals and sighed.

_§I don't want to leave you there... but I'm afraid ssomeone will ssee you before I'm ready to tell them.§_

_§Doessss the__**owl**__get to ride out in public?§_Addy asked with disdain.

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. _§Her name is Hedwig. Come on Addy, don't be jealous. She's going to spend most of the school year living in the owlery. She's my post owl. You're my familiar. But you're both my friends. I don't see why you feel like you have to be jealous of her. And to answer your question –__**no**__. I'm sending her ahead to Hogwarts and putting her cage in the workroom.§_

Addy did the closest thing to a sigh that a snake can and let her head fall onto her coiled body. Harry was pretty sure she was pouting.

_§Look... how about this. You can stay in my pocket. That way you aren't on my wrist so there's less temptation for me to cast any magic with you,§_ Harry said.

Addy's head shot up and she perked up instantly.

_§Really?§_

_§Yup. Come on, get in. I need to get going.§_

– –

Vernon Dursley pulled his car up to the curb and Harry got out, went around to the back and waited a moment until his uncle had unlatched the boot. Harry pulled his trunk out of it and it instantly sprouted wheels and a handle. Harry quickly looked around to make sure no one noticed and closed the boot.

He walked back to the door where his uncle was scowling at him from the driver's seat and sighed before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a folded piece of paper and handed it to his uncle.

"That's a list of the major investment changes you should make until next summer. It should hold you over till I come back at the end of June," Harry said before silently adding to himself, _if I come back._

Vernon's eye's instantly lit up and he snatched the paper and looked at it greedily.

There was a grunt from his uncle that could be interpreted as some sort of farewell, and then the man quickly drove away.

Harry made his way through the train station to the divider between platforms 9 and 10 and stood there for a moment relaxing and waiting. He was very early. He had wanted a lot of time so he could sort through his thoughts before actually making his way onto the platform for the Hogwarts Express. He leaned against a barrier a short distance from The barrier and slid down to a seated position and hunched over.

He brought up one knee and stretched his arm over it and hung his head down behind his arm and leg to hid his face. It looked, from the outside, that he was maybe resting there.

_§Ssso what are you going to do?§_ Addy hissed from her place inside his shirt pocket.

_§I haven't decided yet,§_ Harry moaned with a hiss. _§I've seen this unfold in so many different ways over the years in my head. I could play dumb and wait for the Weasley's and ask for their help, but I'm not sure if I want to do that. Plus I'd be lying to them. The first thing I do is act like I don't know how to get through the barrier, when I definitely do... I don't think I want to do that.§_

Addy groaned. She'd heard this rant too many times, but would sit through it again, if it would help her master. She was usually his sounding board for his internal debates.

_§And then there's the question of what I do about Ginny...§_

_§Ah, yesss. The girl. What **are** you going to do about that?§_

_§That's the thing... I mean, I've seen visions where she and I could end up being... more than friends, but...§_

_§You've been thinking a lot about the Granger girl lately,§_ Addy finished for him. Harry suspected she was smirking at him.

_§...maybe,§_Harry mumbled. _§I mean... for the longest time my visions showed her and me only ever being friends, and her eventually showing interest in Ron. But she ends up very... pretty. And she gets me... or, she will get me. Once my mind started wandering in that direction my visions totally shifted and I started seeing... other possibilities.§_

_§And you think you like those better than the ones with Ginny?§_

_§Yeah, but what about Ron?§_

_§Harry... none of these thingsss have happened yet. You aren't cheating anyone out of sssomething because none of it'ss happened yet.§_

_§I know, I know. You're alwayss telling me that.§_

_§That'sss because it's true.§_ Addy hissed in a smug tone. _§Besssidess, from what you've told me, Ron is a real prat to Hermione for yearsss. They do nothing but bicker. I can hardly sssee how that would lead to a ssuccesssful relasshionssship.§_

Harry groaned and let his head fall backwards and hit the concrete barrier behind him. He sighed and let his head fall back down behind his arm.

_§Honesstly Harry... do you intend to start dating when you're eleven?§_

_§No.§_

_§Then why are you worried? Stop trying to plan everything and just live your life. You know you're terrible at following through with plansss anyway.§_

_§I know. It's just that if I want to go for Ginny, I have an opportunity to get something started right now. You know... lay down a foundation or something. I could... I don't know, offer to be quill pals or something.§_

_§Why not do that anyway? You can ssstill be just friendss with the girl and be quill palsss. And it might help reduccce sssome of her 'Boy Who Lived' silly fangirlissshness. Not to mention making her lessss sshy next year when she ssstarts at Hogwarts. And if you're friendsss you can just tell her about the Diary ssso that when sshe findss it, she'll just give it to you.§_

Harry sighed and nodded and Addy continued.

_§Trying to choose what girl you may or may not go for sseveral years from now isss just sssilly anyway. Just try living your life in the present for once and sssee which one you end up developing feelingss for."_

_§You're right. Okay. I'll still talk to Ginny today and suggest writing to her... I still don't know what sort of reason I'll use for that. I don't want to lie.§_

Addy chuckled. _§You never want to lie, and yet you do it oh so often.§_

_§Ssshut up.§_


	4. Book 1: Hogwarts Express

**Chapter 3: Hogwarts Express **

Harry sat and watched as numerous people made their way through the crowds and disappeared through the concrete barrier that led into Platform 9 ¾. Some successfully pulling off the 'muggle' look, and many many more who were... not. Some didn't bother much at all, and just wore their wizard robes as they escorted their children, while others 'tried' to look muggle, but really only just looked ridiculous.

Harry giggled and chuckled as he sat there, people watching, waiting for the band of red-heads to arrive. Addy poked her head out of the top of his pocket and quietly hissed jokes at the more ridiculous looking ones, causing Harry to laugh even harder.

Finally a familiar voice carried through the air that caught Harry's attention. He quickly stood up and Addy tucked herself into the bottom of his shirt pocket.

Harry watched as the Weasley matriarch, followed four sons and one small daughter began to hurry towards the barrier. The eldest son present made his way through first while the woman began talking with a pair of identical twins who seemed to be teasing her about getting them mixed up.

Harry walked up behind the girl who was looking rather sullen.

"Cheer up. It's only another year and you'll get to go too," Harry said in a quite voice as he leaned over her shoulder and spoke.

She jumped and turned back to look at him with confused shock.

"What?"

"You aren't going this year, right? But you'll get to go next year," Harry said, in what he hoped was a reassuring voice.

"How'd you know that? Who are you?"

"I'm Harry," he said as he stuck his hand out, offering it.

She looked at it curiously for a second before reaching out and giving it a hesitant shake.

"Sorry if I come off as a bit odd. I know it's none of my business – you just looked rather sad."

She pulled her lip in between her teeth and scowled. "I'm not sad... I'm just annoyed. I should get to go too. Instead I have to stay at home, all alone with no one to keep me company but my mum. It's going to be so _boring_, and she's going to make me learn to knit or something, I just know it."

Harry chuckled. "Well, if you want a friend, I could be your quill pal. I'll write you about some of the stuff that happens at school, and then you'll be more prepared and know what to expect next year when it's your turn."

She looked at him curiously. "You don't even know me, and you'd write me letters?" she asked, incredulously.

Harry shrugged. "Sure. I don't have anyone else to write. I'm sort of an orphan. I don't know anyone outside of school to write to, but I got a post owl of my own in Diagon Alley last month. If I don't find someone to write letters to, she'll just end up spending the whole year bored off her rocker in the owlery."

"Um... okay. I guess."

"Ginny, dear, what are... oh, hello there," the woman said, noticing Harry there for the first time.

"Hello. I'm Harry," he said, smiling brightly at the woman who he had seen as a surrogate mother figure in his visions for years.

She smiled warmly down at him. "It's a pleasure to meet you Harry. I'm Molly Weasley."

Harry turned his attention back to the girl. "And you're Ginny Weasley. Right?"

Ginny looked a bit stunned for a moment but smiled slightly and nodded.

"Come on, Ginny. The train is leaving soon, we have to get onto the platform. Do you need any help dear?" she ended, turning her attention to Harry.

"No, I'm fine. I know how to get on."

"Alright then."

The next moment Molly Weasley and Ginny disappeared through the barrier and Harry quickly followed.

Once through the barrier Harry waved to Ginny and made his wait towards the train. When he got in, one of the twins offered to help him get his trunk into the compartment since it _looked_ heavy, and Harry was too short to really reach it easily anyway.

He began to pick it up and coughed a bit in surprise.

Harry chuckled. "Feather light charm. Came with the trunk," he said, in explanation for the surprising weight.

"Nice," the twin said with a grin. The other one nodded his head in agreement.

Harry ran his hand through his hair and heaved a soft sigh as he looked around the train compartment.

"Blimey!" one of the twins gasped. Harry looked over at them confused and saw as the one the just spoke elbowed the other in the ribs and nodded his head towards Harry.

"You're Harry Potter!"

– –

Harry watched out the window as the train pulled away from the station, quickly vanishing from view. He was in the last compartment and still alone, although he knew that wouldn't last much longer.

As if right on cue, the compartment door slid open and a young red-headed boy popped his head through asking if he could join and saying that everywhere else was full.

He glanced at Harry, his eyes flicking towards Harry's forehead, which was covered by his black, scuffy hair, and his eyes quickly darted away and out the window.

The compartment door slid open again and the twins were back. They told the younger boy that they were going to the middle of the train to hang out with someone called 'Lee Jordon' and mentioned something about a giant tarantula that made the young redhead flinch.

They introduced themselves to Harry as Fred and George, and told Harry that the younger redhead sitting with him was their younger brother, Ron, and then they departed.

A moment of silence passed between them before Ron turned his attention to Harry and blurted out, "Are you really Harry Potter?"

Harry chuckled and nodded his head. "Yup."

"Oh... I thought that Fred and George might have been joking. They do that a lot. Never trust a word they say... for that matter, never eat anything they give you either."

Harry smiled. "I'll remember that, thanks."

"So have you really got... _you know_..." Ron said, pointing at Harry's forehead.

Harry reached up and pulled back his fringe of black hair, exposing the lighting shaped scar there.

Ron gaped and stared at it in awe. Harry felt like rolling his eyes, but refrained.

"So that's where... _you-know-who_..."

"Yup. He shot me with the killing curse, but my mum did some ancient protection spell and sacrificed her own life for it. The magic protection she created went into me, so when his killing curse hit, it bounced right back off and hit him instead."

"Blimey! You're kidding! I've never heard that before."

"I don't see how anyone could. It's not like anyone ever interviewed me about it. I hear there are books written about it, but how could they have any idea what happened? The only ones that were there that night and still alive to tell about it is me and Voldy, and I doubt Voldemort's been giving interviews either, considering he's just a formless wraith now and all."

Ron gasped and sat ramrod straight in his seat.

"You said the name! You're not supposed to say the name!" Ron hissed and then paused, "and what do you mean, he's still alive? He's supposed to be dead now."

"Nope. Just his body was destroyed. He's been a spirit without a body for the last decade, wandering around the forests of Albania trying to find some way to get a body back. I imagine it's a right dreadful way to exist."

"He's alive?" Ron gasped, looking pale and horror stuck. "How do you know, though?" Ron whispered, leaning closer, as if he were afraid that their subject matter was too dangerous a topic to be discussed a full volume.

"I just _do_, really. I guess I'm a seer. I have dreams and visions about stuff. Been doing it my whole life."

"What kinds of _stuff?_"

"Well, I've got two different kinds of visions. First person, and third person. The first person visions are almost always of various possible futures, and the dream feels more like reality than a dream. Like, I'm actually _living_ in that moment. I feel my own feels from that moment, think my own thoughts from that moment... everything. And when I wake up, I remember it just like I would remember the stuff I actually did the day before.

"It's always been really confusing. Took me forever to really get a handle on it all. Sometimes I'd just dream about really mundane stuff, like being in class the next day, or some day the next week. Then when I'd actually _get_ to that day, it was like, _I've already done this,_ and it'd be really boring and annoying.

"But I've lived through loads of time at Hogwarts this way too, so I actually feel like I've already _been there._ Like I've already been so a bunch of my classes, and met everyone. I mean... well, honestly I've seen _you_ in my visions for years."

Ron blanched. "Me? You've had visions about me!"

"You and everyone else at school. Yeah."

"Ruddy hell, that's crazy!"

"Tell me about it. Anyway, the other kinds of visions are 3rd person. They're more like I'm watching something happen from far away. Or like I'm just floating around in the background. It's almost like watching a pensieve memory. They're usually a lot shorter than my future first person visions too. Sometimes they're of the future, but usually the 3rd person visions are of the past. Things that happened before I was even born. I've seen visions of both of my parents that way. They're time in the Order, and even some stuff from when they were at Hogwarts at students. They're probably my most precious memories..."Harry finished in a whisper.

"Wow..." Ron whispered. "So... so you know what's gonna happen? You really know the future?"

"I know _possible_ futures. The future is _always_ changing. Every different choice people make changes everything. The only really detailed stuff I get comes when I'm sleeping. I've seen possible futures fairly far into the future. Farthest I've really seen is about 6 or 7 years from now, but I've only gotten bits and pieces from that far away.

"I may have an idea of what could happen on a certain day, but the second something unexpected happens, or me, or someone else make a different choice than I'd anticipated, everything can get changed and I really have no idea whats gonna happen, just like everyone else. If I focus I can sort of get glimpses of visions when I'm awake, and I get these gut feelings, but they're not as detailed or always as useful.

"This conversation, for example... it's going completely different than any of my visions because I just sort of ran off on a tangent. I'm always trying to make plans, so I know what's going to happen, but I'm utter rubbish at sticking to them."

"So you've had visions about us sitting in this train car, talking?" Ron gaped.

"Yup. For years, really. You're gonna be my best mate. This is how we meet, so it's sort of significant. I see the significant stuff a lot, in lots of different variations. I guess it's mostly because I keep trying out different ideas of how they might play out."

"Best mate?" Ron's jaw dropped and Harry laughed.

"If that's alright with you, at least," Harry said nodding.

"You wanna be my best mate?" Ron asked, apparently flabbergasted by this concept.

"Yup."

Ron looked at Harry with stunned skepticism for a moment before shrugging and grinning. "Okay, I'm fine with that."

Harry laughed and nodded.

The two talked some more for a while after that and began to talk about Ron's family. Harry already knew everything Ron told him, but he was very accustomed to knowing exactly what people were going to say to him, and gave no sign of boredom or disinterest. Seeing this moment actually playing out, _for real_, was a real thrill. His first real, human friend.

Harry had intentionally kept away from making friends with any of the muggle children at his school growing up. He knew that he couldn't tell them about magic, or his unique ability. Plus there was the fact that anyone he got close to could potentially be put in danger because of it. At least when Harry became friends with other witches and wizards, they had the potential to be able to defend themselves.

Muggles were utterly defenseless against the dangers that would eventually haunt Harry's future.

At about half past twelve there was a loud clatter outside the compartment and a smiling witch appeared and opened the door.

"Anything off the trolley dears?" she asked, motioning towards a cart in front of her that was loaded up with various wizarding sweets.

Harry grinned and quickly jumped up, picking through the candy by the loads. Ron remained quiet and looked rather glum, mumbling something about a sandwich.

"Come on Ron, help me pick some stuff out. I've never actually gotten to eat any of this wizard candy before. Pick out all your favorites and I'll get a load of each."

"Whut?" Ron said, looking up confused.

"Look Ron. Candy. I'm buying it, and you're going to help me eat it. Now get over here and help me pick out the best stuff."

After they'd loaded up on sweets the trolley witch told Harry the total and he spoke it aloud to his money pouch, put his hand in, and pulled out the exact amount to hand to her.

"Is that a bottomless money pouch?" Ron said in awe.

The two settled back into the compartment and began to sort through the mountains of candy.

"Yup. I hooked it up to my trust account when I visited Gringott's for the first time to get my school supplies. I only just gained access to it for the first time last month. It's absolutely fantastic to have access to my own money for a change. Loadd better than have to beg my blasted muggle uncle for money that I earned him in the first place," Harry grumbled.

"Huh?" Ron said, while chewing on a liquorish wand.

"Ever since my parents died, I've had to live with my muggle aunt and uncle, and their son, Dudley. They absolutely _hate_ magic, and they hate me. Treated me like utter rubbish. They basically treated me the way most old pureblood families treat their house elves."

Ron's eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped slightly at that.

"When I was about six, I figured out how to get them to start treating me like a human being instead of a servant. See, my uncle was always telling me how much of a freeloader I was, and how I was such a burden on their finances," Harry said sarcastically and rolled his eyes, "so I started giving him stock tips, and telling him the results to the horse and dog races. Once he realized that he could make a load of money off my 'freakishness', he started acting a bit more civilly towards me.

"Even so, he still makes a huge fuss whenever I ask for anything. He gives it to me, but not without a lot of moaning and complaining first."

"That's awful," Ron said, but then he looked away with a sad scowl on his face. "But at least you've got money now."

"I've got loads of it, actually. Way more than I'll ever know what to do with. I'm the last Potter left alive, so I've got everything. Including a load of land, and various investments that the goblins will continue to manage for me till I'm of age. I looked over one of the statements they sent me, and I suspect I could sit on my bum for my whole life and not work a day, and still die with a mountain of gold left over. It's ridiculous."

Ron's ears turned pink and his mouth thinned into a line, but he didn't say anything.

"You know, it's funny," Harry continued, pretending not to notice Ron's reaction, "most people would give anything for fame and wealth. I've got both and I hate it. I'd do anything for people to not notice who I am, and I'd give all the money away in a heartbeat to a worthy cause.

"As is, I already told the Goblins that half of it goes to your family if I get knocked off in the next few years."

Ron choked on the piece of candy he was chewing on and gaped at Harry. "You did what!"

"The rest is set to go to Remus Lupin. I think he'd be just as confused to –"

"Wait, wait! What? Harry, we... we just met! How could you have told the goblins... oh... but..."

Harry laughed at Ron's confused and clearly flustered expression.

"Honestly, Ron, I'd walk into my bank vault, fill a sack full of galleons and just hand it over to your dad, if I thought he'd take it. I know that won't work though. You all have this big thing about charity – which it wouldn't be! It's frustrating! I've been trying to work this one out in my head for ages. Especially once I realized how much ruddy money I've got. It's just insane. Load and loads of money I didn't earn... and of course, if I actually _did_ control the investments, I could easily quadruple my holdings in a year thanks to my 'gift'. Money is so bloody easy for me to make that it has no meaning. It's not a big deal. But I know that it _is_ a big deal for your family because your dad is the only one that works, and you've got a huge family.

"I know that a nice pile of gold would bring a lot of happiness to your family. Real, pure, elated, happiness. I would _love_ to be able to give that to you guys. Your mum is gonna be great to me... I know it's weird when I do that whole talking about stuff that hasn't happened yet thing, Ron... sorry, but it's true. Your family is going to be great to me, and I'd love to be able to give you guys something that would really make the lot of you happy."

Ron just sat there, staring at Harry with an utterly dumbstruck expression, and his jaw hanging wide open.

"I hate all these stupid stigmas attached to money though. The idea that I'd be 'buying someones friendship' – which I'm _not._ I know we'd be friends with or without any money. Or then theres the idea that I'm handing the money out because of some sense of pity or something. It's all ridiculous. I've got money. Why can't I just give it away without having some stupid stigma attached to it? Bloody frustrating is what it is."

The two sat in somewhat uncomfortable silence for a minute after that. "Sorry I ranted. It's just one of those things that bugs me a bunch. I hate money. It's too damn complicated. Anyway, tell me about the candies. What's your favorite?"

The mood lightened a bit after that, and the two were quickly chatting and joking about the various sweets. Harry explained to Ron that pictures in the muggle world don't move at all, and told him about some of his favorite muggle candies.

Ron told Harry about the Wizard cards that came with the chocolate frogs and Harry pocketed the card with Albus Dumbledore in case he needed it for later.

The pair bravely ventured forth into the dangerous realm of Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans, taking turns in eating the potentially questionable ones.

Ron showed Harry his pet rat who he said was named Scabbers. Harry had to try very hard not to react poorly to the sight of the small light gray vermin.

Ron complained about how the darn thing could have died and you'd barely notice a difference with as much as it slept. As it was, even after pulling it from his pocket and jostling it around quite a bit, the thing refused to wake and Ron just left him to sit on the seat beside him.

Harry looked down at his wristwatch and made a face.

"What's up mate?"

"I forgot that this would stop working."

"Huh?"

"My digital watch. The magic on the train is already enough to start throwing it out of whack."

"What's a digital watch?" Ron asked, confused.

"It's a... well, it's a watch. I guess, like a pocket watch, but you wear it on your wrist. Do wizards have anything like that?"

"Um... no. But what's di... digi-whatever."

"Oh, digital. It's got a tiny computer in it. Instead of running off of a physical mechanism like an old fashioned clock or watch, it runs off of electricity and displays the numbers on a tiny screen... only now, it's already starting to malfunction. It's just showing garbled numbers right now. By the time we get to Hogsmead, it'll probably just go blank. Blast! I wish I'd thought to buy a pocket watch while I was in Diagon Alley."

Harry sighed and stuck his hand up his sleeve, grabbing his holly and phoenix feather wand from the holster strap he'd put there, and pulled it out.

"What are you doing?" Ron asked, looking surprised.

"Casting a tempus. I want to know what time it is."

"The time telling spell? You know how to do it?" Ron asked, sitting up straighter and looking far more interested than he had a moment earlier.

"I think so. I mean, I know it in my head, I've just never actually done it in reality."

Harry was about to flick his wand when the compartment door slid open and a round faced boy and a very bushy haired girl appeared there.

"Have any of you seen a toad?" the girl asked.

"What?" Ron asked.

"A toad. Nevile here lost his toad. Have you seen one? Oh! Are you doing magic? Let's see it then? What is it?"

Harry blinked. This was slightly different. Nevile usually showed up alone first in his visions, and then they'd come back together a bit later. But anyone on the train could have changed their mind about any number of things and done something slightly less likely and changed things. These little changes were pretty common so he just smiled.

"Um, alright. It's the tempus charm. I was wondering what time it is, but my wristwatch stopped working because it's digital and all the magic is interfering with the electricity."

"Well, of course a digital watch won't work here. This is a magical train. Okay, on with the spell. Let's see it," the girl said, folding her arms across her chest impatiently. Ron scowled at the bossy girl, but Harry just chuckled at her and refocused on his wand.

He wondered if he'd be able to pull it off. This would be the first actual spell that he tried with his wand. Before this, he'd refrained from using it at all since he didn't want to risk setting off the underage magic trace, and his parcel magic and Addy worked fine for any of his magic needs.

He made a small circle with the tip of his wand and then a small flick before saying "_Tempus_," in a soft whisper.

The glowing outline of a traditional clock face materialized in front of him with hour, minute, and second hand, displaying the correct time. Harry smiled and the bushy-haired girl nodded with a look of approval on her face. Ron and the sad round-faced boy both looked very impressed.

Harry lowered his wand, and the clock faded. He turned his attention back to the girl and boy. "So you said something about a toad?"

"Yes, Nevile lost his toad and can't find it," the girl answered.

"What was his name?" Harry asked, turning his attention to the boy.

"T-trevor," the boy whimpered. "He keeps getting away from me."

"Well, I think I might know of a way to get him back," Harry said with a smile.

The boy's head whipped up and he looked at Harry with bright hope in his eyes. "Really?"

"Yeah. You two come in here, and one of you hold the compartment door open," Harry said, standing to his feet.

"What are you going to do?" the girl asked as she moved in, and held the door as he'd asked.

Harry shrugged and lifted his wand. "Summoning charm. Never actually tried it before, but I'd never tried the tempus charm before either. No guarantee that it'll work, but it's worth a shot. And if I can't do it, I'm sure you can find one of the older kids to give it a shot."

Harry stuck his wand out and let out a small breath. He flicked his wand and said "_Accio Trevor!_" in a quiet, but forceful voice. He kept his wand extended and his mind focused on the mental image of the boy's toad as he felt a tug on his magic. A moment passed where nothing appeared to be happening and the round-boy's face fell, when suddenly a green-ish brown toad flew through the open compartment door and hovered in the air, at the tip of Harry's wand.

"Brilliant!" Harry yipped. "It worked!"

"Trevor!" the boy yelled as he reached forward and grabbed the floating frog.

"That was really something," the girl said, looking rather surprised. "I've tried a few simple spells myself, just for practice, and they've all worked for me, but I've read that summoning something it supposed to be really hard. They don't even teach a spell like that till 3rd or 4th year. Where'd you learn it? I know it's not in any of our textbooks for this year because I've read them all, and I would remember if any of them covered summoning charms."

"Harry's a seer," Ron said, as he sat back on his seat and unwrapped another chocolate frog and began to bite off it's limbs. "He probably remembers sitting through the class in 3rd or 4th year when he'll learn it in the future."

The girl looked very confused at this statement.

Harry chuckled and shrugged. "He's actually partially right."

"That's bloody crazy! You're going to be so far ahead of us, aren't you?" Ron said, biting off the head of his chocolate frog, that was still squirming. Harry cringed at the visual.

"It's not like I remember every class taught for the next six years or anything." Harry said defensively, "I've only had visions of some days here and there. Certain classes and certain events. I have memories of using the Accio charm, and that's how I really remember it. I don't necessarily remember_learning_ it, but I remember _knowing_ it... so I do know it. Does that make sense?"

"Sort of," Ron said, shrugging.

"No," the girl said, looking at Harry dubiously. "I've never heard of anything like that before. What does he mean that you're a 'seer'?"

"I have visions of things that haven't happened yet, and sometimes of things that happened a long time ago." Harry went on to explain to the girl, and round faced boy, what he had said to Ron earlier about the difference between his 1st and 3rd person visions, and then about how he'd helped his uncle Vernon with his money investing for years.

"Isn't that sort of like cheating?" the girl said, making a face.

"Well, it's all gambling anyway, but I suppose so. Knowing which dog is gonna win the race, and placing a bet on _that_ dog... I guess that's cheating. But I really didn't feel like I had much of a choice. I could see that if I didn't do _something_, things were only going to get much much worse. He was going to start smacking me around soon and I had to do something to stop that. It's one thing to have him constantly yelling at me, but I didn't think I could handle getting regularly beaten."

"That's horrible!" the girl gasped. "You should have reported them to the authorities for child abuse!"

"I couldn't. Dumbledore would never let me leave the Dursley's. He'd probably _Obliviate_ them, and put them under a compulsion charm rather than let me leave."

"What? What does the headmaster have to do with where you live?"

"He's got custody of me, according to the magical world. He's the one the placed me with my aunt and uncle."

They were all silent for a moment as they stared at Harry.

"Professor Dumbledore has custody of you?" Ron asked in awe. Harry made a face.

"Sort of, but he _shouldn't_. My parents made a will, and listed several people I was to go to if they died, and Dumbledore was _not_ one of them. But if Dumbledore hadn't stepped in, the Ministry would have tried to take control of my custody situation, and that would have been even worse. Dumbledore stuck me with my aunt because she's my only blood relative left and he thought being with her would help with the blood protection that blocked Voldemort's killing curse."

They all gasped at the name, but it was the found-faced boy whose eyes widened his hand flew up to point at Harry from a different realization.

"You're Harry Potter!"

Harry blinked three times before he grinned, laughed lightly and shook his head.

"Sorry. I didn't even realize I hadn't introduced myself," Harry said, sheepishly. "Here, let me do the introductions," he smirked and pointed to Ron. "This is Ron Weasley. Ron Weasley, this is Hermione Granger, and this is Nevile Longbottom."

Hermione and Nevile gawked at Harry, and Ron laughed.

"You're going to be really entertaining to be around, aren't you?" Ron asked, rhetorically.

"How'd you know my name?" Nevile asked.

"He's a seer, remember?" Ron said, chuckling.

"Oh... right," Nevile said, turning slightly pink.

Hermione seemed to get over this much quicker, and refocused on Harry. "Are you really Harry Potter? I've read about you. I did some background reading when I discovered I was a witch and you're in Modern Magical History, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and Great Wizarding Events of the 20th Century."

"Those books are all rubbish," Harry said rolling his eyes.

"What!" Hermione gasped.

"Well, I guess I can't say that the _whole_ book is rubbish, but the sections in them about _me_ are."

"Why do you say that!" she asked, looking horribly offended that he would make such remarks about her precious books.

"Well all those books say that '_Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord_', right? Well that whole statement is utter rubbish, and since it's the foundation for all their so-called history lessons, that just proves that the whole thing is wrong."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Well, first off, _I_ didn't defeat anyone. I was a 15 month old baby. How the bloody hell does anyone honestly believe that a fifteen month old baby could defeat anything, let alone a powerful dark lord? It's ridiculous! And second, Voldemort –" all three of them gasped, but Harry didn't even pause, _"isn't actually dead_. His body was destroyed, but he'd done all these crazy dark rituals and made these really nasty objects that would make him immortal, so his spirit is trapped in our world as a non-corporeal wraith."

Nevile looked so pale, Harry wondered if he were about to pass out. Ron had already heard all of this earlier, but he still looked ill, hearing it again. Hermione, however, looked fascinated.

"I bet not one of those books said anything even remotely like that, did they?" Harry asked Hermione, who quickly shook her head, _no_.

"What I really hate about the whole blasted 'Boy-Who-Lived' nonsense is that everyone thinks that _I'm_ some sort of savior of the wizarding world. It's rubbish. No one ever acknowledges my mum, and _she's_ the one who really did it."

Hermione leaned forward, utterly enthralled. "What do you mean?" she whispered enthusiastically.

"My mum sacrificed her own life to power a protection spell that went into me, and blocked the killing curse. I mean, everyone knows that the _Avada Kedavra_ curse can't be shielded or blocked, but she used some sort of really really ancient and powerful magic and by giving up her own life, voluntarily, she was able to put enough protection into me that when the curse hit it rebounded off of me.

"It was _her_ magic, and _her_ sacrifice that saved me, and destroyed Voldy's body. Not _me._ Not something that _I did._ But does anyone talk about _Lily Potter, savior of the wizarding world?_ No. Of course not. Especially since she was muggle-born. Having to admit a muggle-born witch was responsible for destroying the Dark Lord's body would upset too many of the old families. So it's always _boy-who-lived_ this and _boy-who-lived_ that. Pfft." Harry shook his head, obvious annoyance in his eyes.

The group was quiet for a moment, and surprisingly enough, it was Nevile who asked the first question.

"Do you actually remember it? That night, I mean?"

"Yeah... sort of. It's hard for me to tell what exactly is an original memory of the event, and what's a memory of my vision of the event."

"Huh?" Nevile asked.

"Well, I've seen the whole night in visions too, so I remember it really clearly from that. I don't know if I'd actually remember any of it, if it weren't for the visions. I mean, I was only 15 months old, after all, and I don't really remember anything else from that far back."

"What did it feel like? Getting hit with the killing curse?" Nevile whispered.

Harry crunched up his face and looked thoughtful.

"Well... it hurt like hell. I remember the green light coming at me, and totally blinding me, and then so much pain I was sure I would die... but I didn't. My whole body tingled for hours after that. Took quite a while for the pain to subside too..."

"So it did actually hit you. It didn't just get shielded and bounced back," Hermione asked with surprise.

"Oh, it hit me all right. Where the curse hit is where my scar is. Bastard hit me right in the head. Wish he'd hit me in the chest or something instead. At least then the scar wouldn't be somewhere so obvious.

"Sharing the killing curse actually connected us somehow. There's this whole convoluted prophecy about it that's gonna cause me no small amount of trouble, but I'm not going to let myself worry on it too much just yet."

"What do you mean, _connected?_ And what's this about a prophecy?" Hermione asked.

"Well the connection is pretty complicated. I actually gained some of his innate skills – not his power," Harry quickly added as Ron's eyes began to bug out, "just the same potential strengths. I mean, if I actually wanted to, I could probably be utterly brilliant with the dark arts, but I don't think I really want to go mucking around in that too much. But I also gained the ability to speak parseltongue from him because of the connection."

The three gasped.

"It's just a language. Bloody hell," Harry said in an exasperated tone. "So I can talk to snakes, that doesn't make me evil. Anyway, the prophecy is another nasty can of worms. Like I said, he's not actually dead, and someday he's going to get a body back and try to start another war. When that happens, this prophecy says that I'm the one who has to kill him. The prophecy was made before I was even born, and it's why he came after my family and me."

"You have to kill _You-know-who?_" Ron whimpered, turning completely pale.

Harry sighed and his face turned grim. He turned his head to stare out the train window for a moment before turning back to them and nodded his head. "Yeah. Well, it's either me or him. That's what the prophecy says. Either I kill him, or he kills me. It's why I've gotta take school seriously. I need to prepare. I've seen how bad it could get if... it won't be pretty."

"You've seen him coming back into power?" Hermione asked in a whisper.

"Yeah... I mean, there's a whole slew of different potential outcomes. Different times when he _could_ come back, depending on which set of circumstances play out. I'm aiming for one of the circumstances where he doesn't manage to come back until I'm at least in my 4th year or later, but I also hope to make sure I kill him before it gets to my 6th year, because it's around then that the war really starts, and people start to die."

The other three children in the compartment each looked as if they had just been kicked in the gut, but Harry continued anyway.

"Theoretically, I actually have a really _really_ slim possibility of even taking him out this year, but it's really unlikely."

"_This_ year!" Hermione said in a horrified whisper. "He won't be getting his body back _this_ year, will he? Harry, we're only eleven! _You're_ only eleven! What chance could you possibly stand against him?"

"He won't have a body back this year," Harry reassured her. "Basically, I need to work on counteracting some of the dark magic precautions that he took to make himself immortal. I have to do that no matter what. He can't die until they've all been destroyed. If I managed to destroy them all right now, the second his current host body died, he'd be screwed. There'd be nothing holding him here and he'd pass on."

"Well that's perfect then. Why not just do that? Do you know what they all are? And how to undo all his immortality things?"

"I... do," Harry said hesitantly. "Thing is I'm not entirely sure how to destroy one of them... without dying myself... and there's another one that I honestly have no idea how I'd get to it."

"Oh..." Hermione said as her temporarily hopeful expression crumpled to despair.

"It's okay you guys. Cheer up. I mean, like you said, we're _just eleven_. This isn't something that's going to come up and kill us all right now. We've got years before the really dangerous stuff starts, and if I'm lucky I can take care of it before he gets his deatheater followers back and war breaks loose. My focus this year is going to be on laying a solid magic foundation and on getting stronger. I'm going to focus on learning as much magic as I can so I can prepare."

The group talked for a bit longer and Harry eventually managed to get the topic back to lighter subjects. He had been afraid that knowing what sort of danger his friendship came with might scare them all away, but he was unwilling to let them get close to him, ignorant of how dangerous that would be. He was going to train and prepare during these early years, but he wanted them to train too. Getting 11-year olds to put forth serious effort into their training took some serious motivation, and what better motivation was there then knowledge that a nasty dark lord was returning in a few years?

He shared his candy with Nevile and Hermione, but eventually it neared arrival time at Hogsmead station and they all needed to get into their school robes, so Hermione and Nevile left to return to their original compartments.

Harry was glad that Malfoy hadn't felt the need to come find Harry on the train, and managed to steer clear of him and his two enormous companions as he and Ron disembarked from the train and met up with Nevile and Hermione again. Malfoy did make eye contact with him for one brief moment though. The look on his face seemed rather contemplative and calculating. Harry shrugged; it was at least better than a sneer and a scowl.

He heard Hagrid calling out for the '_firs' years'_only a moment before he spotted the man's towering form standing on the platform. Hagrid lead them all towards the boats and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Nevile all climbed into one together.

Harry patted Addy in his pocket as subtly as he could and he felt her wiggle against him and smiled. He still hadn't determined exactly how he was going to introduce his familiar to his new friends, but he knew he would need to tell Ron and Nevile at some point, just so that they could help him hide her from their other two roommates.

"Any idea which house you'll go into?" Hermione asked the group at large.

"I don't know, but I better get into Gryffindor. I'd never hear the end of it if I got sorted anywhere else," Ron said with a glum look on his face.

"I'll probably end up in Hufflepuff," Nevile sighed.

They all paused for a moment and turned to look at Harry, who was grinning at them and trying to hold in his chuckles.

"Well?" Ron prodded.

"Gryffindor. All of us," Harry said with a smile.

"Even me?" Nevile gaped.

"Yes, Nevile – even _you._ You're not nearly as weak as you think. You just need some confidence. You've got loads of magic in you, you just need to learn to tap into it. That's why we're all here, you know. To learn to use our magic. You wouldn't have gotten in if you were really a squib like all your silly relatives keep telling you."

"Squib? What's a squib?" Hermione asked, scowling at the idea of not knowing something.

"You won't come across it in most text books, Hermione," Harry said, reassuringly. "It's a derogatory term. It's basically the opposite of a muggle born. Instead of a magical person being born to muggles, it's like getting a muggle born to magical folk. It's when a non-magical person is born to a magical family. They call that person a squib."

"Why would your family tell you that you were a squib?"

Nevile shrugged. "Guess I didn't show any of the normal signs. They didn't think I had any magic in me until Uncle Alby accidentally dropped me out a window and I bounced when I hit the ground."

"Your uncle dropped you out a window!" Hermione shrieked. "That's horrible! How do you _accidentally_drop someone out a window?"

Harry coughed and looked away.

"It was an accident, wasn't it?" Hermione gasped in a hushed voice.

"He says it was..." Nevile said weakly. He looked a bit ill, honestly. "He gave me Trevor as a congratulations gift... for finally showing I had some magic in me."

"More like a _'don't report me to the ministry'_gift," Harry mumbled.

"Why would he intentionally drop Nevile out a window?" Hermione asked in a hushed voice to Harry.

Harry glanced worriedly at Nevile, who was looking with a rather focused scowl at his hands.

"Do you want me to tell you?" Harry asked Nevile.

The boy looked up at Harry with fear and hesitation in his eyes. He sucked in a long breath and finally nodded his head with determination.

"Okay," Harry began hesitantly. "Basically he was working towards one of two situations. One, Nevile finally shows he's got some magic in him, and saves himself, which, fortunately, is what happened."

"And the other option?" Hermione asked.

"That he would go splat before it got out to the public that the Longbottoms had produced a squib," Harry said with a grimace.

"That's awful!" Hermione yelled.

"Great Uncle Alby has always been a bit old fashioned," Nevile mumbled, turning pink in the face and looking into his lap.

The four were quiet for a moment when Harry spoke up.

"Prove him wrong, Nevile."

Nevile looked up, confused.

"Prove to them how wrong they were. Become strong. You've got it in you. I know it. You are Frank and Alice Longbottom's son, and you will make them proud someday."

Harry smiled and gave a determined nod to Nevile. The round-faced boy just stared back at Harry with awe in his eyes.

"Will I really?" he whispered.

Harry nodded and smiled wider.

"Definitely."


	5. Book 1: Meet Wormtail

**Chapter 4: Meet Wormtail**

The sorting was going _exactly_ as Harry's visions had shown him. It was one of the only really consistent events. No matter what else changed in his visions, the students of his year were always sorted into the same houses.

Harry himself was the only anomaly.

And so he stood there in the group of first years at the head of the Great Hall, nervously waiting for the hat to call his name. He was sure that as long as he argued hard enough, he could get in to Gryffindor, no matter where the blasted thing _wanted_ to put him.

"Potter, Harry," Professor McGonagall called out. The Great Hall erupted in whispers and murmurs causing Harry to roll his eyes and sigh. He quickly made his way to the front and sat down on the stool. His vision was quickly obscured by darkness as the hat was placed upon his head, falling down over his eyes.

"Hmmm... difficult," a small voice said into Harry's mind. "And what a powerful skill you have. Haven't seen one with this ability for centuries, and I see the minds of a lot of children."

_You've encountered a seer like me before? In all my reading, I've never found anyone else who seemed to be able to do what I do._

"It's rare. Oh yes. But not unheard of. But let's see... where to put you... You have a very powerful thirst for knowledge. You wish to learn, to become stronger. Such a bright mind. So much potential. You would do well in Ravenclaw."

_Seriously? Ravenclaw? I know I've been seeing that more and more these last few years, but it just totally baffles me how it went from you insisting I go into Slytherin or Gryffindor, to you suddenly wanting to put me in with the Claws._

Harry thought that the hat actually chuckled, but it was difficult to tell.

"Oh, there is no doubt that you could easily go into Salazar's or Godric's houses as well. You are extremely cunning, and can be quite devious..."

_Not by choice. It's just sort of... necessary._

"Yes, but you pull it off so well," the hat mocked and Harry grumbled. "But the courage in you is also undeniable. You carry a heavy burden on your shoulders, and your task is dire, yet you continue to walk forward, unafraid. Godric would be most proud to claim you as his..."

_Well, if it's so close, can I just choose which one I go to?_

"I will take your opinion into consideration," the hat said, and Harry was almost positive that if a hat could smirk, this one would be.

_Please send me to Gryffindor. I've got plans, and it would really screw them up if I ended up in a different house._

"Ah, yes... plans. You aren't much one for sticking to those though, are you?"

_I try..._

"Well, if you're sure... you really wish to go to Gryffindor..."

_I'm sure!_

"Then I guess it must be GRYFFINDOR!"the hat finished out loud.

The Gryffindor table erupted in applause and cheering. The twins began chanting 'We got Potter! We got Potter!'

Harry handed the hat back to McGonagall and heaved a sigh of relief as he hopped down, off the stool, and made his way over to the table to sit beside Hermione and across from Neville, who were both already seated there.

– –

The sorting finished and Dumbledore stood, said a few words, clapped his hands, and the feast materialized before them on the tables to the shock and delight of all the first years, except Harry, who was expecting it.

Hermione scolded Ron several times for trying to talk with his mouth full, which really only made the red-headed boy scowl at her more.

An assortment of introductions and small talk was made, and eventually the feast died down and the food disappeared.

Dumbledore stood and made the start of term announcements. He finished with a rather dire warning about staying away from the third floor corridor unless you wanted to die a most dreadful death, which left everyone looking rather pale and confused.

"What's that about?" Ron wondered. Hermione shrugged and looked at Neville who looked decidedly unnerved by the warning. Then the three of them looked at Harry who was pointedly examining a loose string on his robes.

"Hey Harry," Ron prodded.

"What?" Harry looked up and tried to look innocent and ignorant, but none of them bought it.

"Well?" Ron asked, impatiently.

"Well what?"

Ron groaned. "Come on, mate! What's on the third floor corridor?"

"A locked door with a giant three-headed dog behind it," Harry said with a shrug.

"A what!"

"A three headed dog? You mean like a Cerberus?" Hermione gasped.

Harry shrugged. "Yup. His name is Fluffy."

"Is this a joke?" Ron asked.

"Nope. The dog belongs to Hagrid."

"Why the devil would they keep a Cerberus on the third floor?" Hermione asked, incredulously.

"It's guarding something," Harry said with a shrug. People were starting to stand up and Percy and the other prefects were trying to gather up the first years to lead them to their dormitories.

"What's it guarding?" Ron asked in a whisper as the three huddled close to Harry.

"Just an magical artifact that belongs to an old friend's of Dumbledore's. Look, I'll tell you guys about it another time. Lets get to the common room."

– –

Some time later, Harry, Ron, Nevile, Seamus Finnegan, and Dean Thomas were all together up in the Gryffindor boy's dormitory. For a moment, Harry contemplated picking a different bed then the one he had always seen in his visions, just for the hell of it. Sometimes he liked randomly doing something small and inconsequential differently, just to see what sort of ripple effects it would cause. But he decided not to in the end, and quickly claimed the bed closest to the door on the west side of the room.

The beds were large 4-poster beds with canopies and thick, heavy curtains that could be drawn shut for privacy.

Harry knew that, as soon as was possible, he would be charming the curtains so that whenever they were shut they blocked out sound, both ways. He already knew from his visions that at least three of his new dorm mates were rather loud snorers, and that alone was reason enough to do it, but he also knew he had a tendency to talk in his sleep, and he had no desire for any of his new roommies to overhear something sensitive while he was unconscious.

Harry dragged his Trunk to rest beside his bed, opened up the first compartment and pulled out a couple objects and placed them on his bedside table. Then he closed the lid and twisted the dial around the lock three turns to the left and then once to the right and opened the lid again. Ron glanced over at Harry to see what he was up.

"Whoa!" he said, coming closer and watching as Harry grinned at him and then climbed into the trunk, and down what appeared to be a ladder, until he completely disappeared inside it.

"Huh? Where's he goin?" Seamus said, stepping closer looking around Ron and down into the darkness of Harry's trunk.

"Harry? You down there?" Ron called.

"Yeah, Ron. I'll be right up," Harry's voice called in return.

Harry went to one corner of his room where he had a table and an open aquarium set up for Addy. He pulled open a drawer and pulled out some food for his snake and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

_§How are yo doing in there?§_ Harry hissed quietly.

_§I've been better. Got a bit jossseled around.§_

_§Sorry. Can you put up with staying there a bit longer? I'm going out tonight and I'm going to need your help.§_

_§Of courssse.§_

_§Great, thanks.§_

Harry walked over to a large wardrobe that he had down there, opened it up, and pulled out all of his school robes, and a number of pants and shirts. He set the pile at the base of the ladder and pulled out his wand.

"Let's see if I can get levitation to work with a wand..." Harry mused quietly to himself as he pointed his wand at the pile, gave a quick swish and flick and whispered _'Wingardium Leviosa'._

The pile quivered for a moment but that was it.

Harry twisted up his face and for a split second was tempted to pull Addy out of his pocket, just to get this over with quicker, but knew he couldn't risk letting that become a habit.

He got _Accio_ to work and that was a fourth year spell. The levitation spell was first year material! He huffed and pointed his wand again, focusing harder.

He repeated the movements and said the words a little louder this time and finally the pile of clothes began to float upwards towards the hole in the ceiling.

Ron, Seamus, Nevile and Dean were all crowded around Harry's trunk, and anxiously staring down into it. From the outside you couldn't see anything but darkness, even though inside the room was fully illuminated for Harry. So when a pile of clothes suddenly became visible to them, they all jumped back, rather startled.

The pile hovered out the opening and fell in a mass on the floor beside the trunk. A moment later Harry's head appeared and he climbed out.

"That's brilliant mate! Where'd you get this trunk!" Ron exclaimed as he watched Harry climb out and close the lid again.

"It's nothing too special. Just bought it at the luggage store in Diagon Alley a month ago. It's just a two compartment trunk; one standard compartment, and one expanded one that's the size of a large walk-in closet. Oh, and it's got a feather-weight charm, and it can grow wheels for easier transport. But that's it. The room even came unfurnished."

"It's still fantastic. Can I go down there and check out the room?"

"Uh... it's sort of a huge mess right now. I'll take you down there later. Maybe next weekend. It's really nothing special. It's basically just full of junk at the moment," Harry said quickly. He knew he couldn't take Ron down there until he had introduced him properly to Addy.

Ron looked a bit disappointed, but seemed to shrug it off.

The boys talked and joked for a while before they all changed into their sleep clothes and one, by, one, crawled into their beds to go to sleep. Harry was one of the first to 'go to bed' and had his curtains closed tight while he sat in bed, still fully dressed in his day clothes, while he waited for the others.

Once he was sure that everyone else was asleep he slipped out from behind his curtains and tip-toed over to Ron's bed. He pulled Addy out of his pocket and she quickly slipped into position, wrapped around his right wrist.

Sleeping on the pillow beside Ron's head was a fat, ugly, gray rat, that was missing one toe on his front right paw.

Harry glared darkly at the right and pointed his finger at it. As quietly as he could manage, he hissed a stunner and a red light hit the sleeping rat.

Harry held perfectly still and silent for a moment as he watched Ron to make sure he hadn't been woken up. When a minute passed with no reaction, Harry reached over and grabbed 'Scabbers', stuffed him into the inner pocket of his robes, and crept from the room, down the stairs, and through the common room.

Harry made his way down the seventh floor corridor, ducking into a secret passageway behind a tapestry when he heard Peeves near by. Once the coast was clear he hurried down and stood in front of the gargoyle that blocked the entrance to the headmaster's office.

As Harry stood there, his head slowly cocked to one side and his eyes grew distant as he silently stared at the large stone gargoyle.

_Acid Pops? Nope. Cockroach cluster? Nope. Fizzing Whizbees? Nope. Lemon Drop? Nope. Sherbet lemon? Ahah! That's it!_

"Sherbet lemon," Harry whispered out loud. The gargoyle instantly jumped to the side and the wall split to reveal a moving spiral staircase. Harry quickly jumped onto it and rode it up as the wall closed behind him.

At the top, Harry found himself standing before a highly polished oak door with a brass knocker in the shape of a griffin. He reached forward and quickly knocked on the door, waiting with bated breath for an answer.

–

The headmaster, and deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were sitting down for a late cup of tea and discussing the events of the day. They had also gathered there that night to discuss a certain powerful artifact that was currently residing in the school.

Minerva McGonagall didn't feel it was wise to have said item anywhere near a school, but Albus insisted that he had his reasons, and that it honestly needed to be there, and all they could really do was work to improve the protections around it.

It was getting late and Minerva was preparing to leave for the evening and head to her own quarters when Albus's head suddenly snapped up and he looked, most curiously, at the door to his office. A moment later, a light knocking came against it.

Minerva was started, and wondered who could be calling on the Headmaster at this very late hour.

"Come in, Mr Potter," Albus Dumbledore said.

Minerva's eyes widened in surprise and she watched as the door opened to reveal young Harry Potter looking quite determined, but also visibly nervous.

"It's quite a bit after hours, Mr Potter. What brings you to my office, so late at night?" _And how did you even know how to find it?_ Dumbledore wondered to himself.

Harry strode forward quickly, reached into a deep pocket on the inside of his robe, pulled something out and tossed it onto the desk in front of the headmaster. Minerva gasped slightly and Dumbledore looked at the object, most curiously.

"_That_, is not a rat," Harry said, with a slight growl to his voice.

The two professors turned their attention back to Harry with bewildered, and slightly concerned looks on their faces.

"It's an animagus," Harry continued, and both professors instantly went back to looking at the rat on the desk. "Go ahead. Test it."

Dumbledore pulled out his wand and waved it over the stunned rat. A red glow appeared around it and Minerva gasped.

"Where did you find this?" Dumbledore asked in a soft voice.

"He's been masquerader as the Weasley's pet for years. Percy Weasley found him in the garden at the Burrow about five years ago and kept him. This year, Percy gave him to Ron."

"How is it, exactly, that you were able to tell that Mr Weasley's rat was not a rat at all, but an animagus?" Dumbledore asked with a curious twinkle in his eyes.

"I'd know that rat anywhere," Harry said in a hard voice as he glared down at the rat with disgust in his eyes.

Dumbledore was a bit unnerved by the look in the young boy's eyes, but kept his outward facade as calm as ever.

"What do you mean, Mr Potter?"

Harry looked up and met Dumbledore's eyes. "That rat's name is Peter Pettigrew. He was my parent's secret keeper. Sirius was a decoy, and they switched to Peter in secret at the last minute. The moment the rat had the secret he ran off to his master and betrayed all of us. Then he blew up a street full of muggles and framed Sirius."

Minerva looked utterly dumbstruck at the young man's proclamation. Dumbledore's eyes slowly traveled down and landed on the still motionless form of the rat, sitting in the center of his desk.

"That's quite a claim, Mr Potter. May I ask how you could possibly know all of that?" Dumbledore asked calmly.

"I have visions," Harry said, his voice softer now. Dumbledore's attention was instantly returned to Harry and there was the briefest indication of concern in his eyes as Harry continued. "I've had them all my life. In the beginning I only saw things when I slept, but later on I started to learn to control them when I was awake too. I can intentionally trigger small visions now. It's how I figured out your password, actually..."

Harry fidgeted a bit before taking in a deep breath and continuing. "Most of my visions are of the future. Things that haven't happened yet... a lot of things that never will because I'm always changing things... but I also have had loads of visions of the past. Things that happened long before I was even born. Visions of you. Visions about Voldemort, –" Minerva flinched, but Dumbledore showed no reaction, "and visions of my parents when they were younger. Some of their time when they were here at Hogwarts as students, and then some visions of when they were members of the Order."

"The visions that aren't of myself... I usually call them third-person visions, and seeing them is like watching someone else's pensieve memory. The visions that are of my own future are in first-person and I literally _live_ those visions. When I wake up, I remember my dream as if it were memories of an event I actually lived through. It was quite disorienting when I was younger, and can still confuse me some mornings, but I've gotten pretty used to it."

"How often do you have these visions, Mr Potter?" Dumbledore asked, his eyes twinkling like mad.

"Every night, sir. I don't think I've ever had a nights sleep without one."

"Fascinating..." Dumbledore whispered.

"I don't know if it's the power _he knows not_, or if it's just something I can do, but –"

"What did you say?" Dumbledore asked, his face suddenly showing a bit of true concern.

"My seer's ability. I don't know if this is _'the power the Dark Lord knows not',"_ Harry repeated.

"You know about the prophecy," Dumbledore whispered.

"Prophecy?" Minerva asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"Of course, sir. I've known about it... well, forever really. I think I've always known about it," Harry said.

"That's quite unfortunate... it's far too heavy a burden for someone so young to have to carry," Dumbledore said with sadness in his voice.

"I disagree sir. In fact, if I had remained ignorant of it, a great many people who have died, unnecessarily. Preserving my so-called innocence is not worth even a single life. The sooner I can fulfill the prophecy, the fewer people have to die."

"What Prophecy?" Minerva asked, obviously getting slightly annoyed.

"I'm supposed to kill Voldemort. A prophecy was made before I was even born, basically pointing right at me. It's why my parents had to go into hiding – why they needed a secret keeper in the first place. It's why Voldemort targeted us and came after me. He thought he could kill me when I was still a baby and unable to actually do anything about him. It didn't exactly work out the way he planned," Harry smirked.

"_Supposed_ to kill him? Isn't he already dead?" Minerva said, turning her head to Albus with stunned, questioning eyes.

"I am afraid that he most likely is _not_ dead," Dumbledore said.

"You know, that reminds me of something," Harry said, turning his piercing green eyes on his headmaster. "Why the devil did you bring the Philosopher's stone to Hogwarts? I mean, seriously? And during _my first year_ here? Are you _trying_ to lure Voldemort to Hogwarts? Bring together enough really tempting things, all in one place, to guarantee he'll come?_Am I__**bait**__?"_

The old man actually looked a bit stunned, while Minerva simply looked confused.

"Nevermind... we can discuss this later," Harry said sighing and running his hand through his hair. "Anyway, back to the rat. Honestly, I'd just kill the nasty bastard myself, but I need him alive if we're going to get Sirius out of Azkaban. The Ministry will never be willing to conduct a review of his case without new evidence because they'd have to admit that they never gave him a trial in the first place, if they did. The only way that they'll get off their arses and do a proper job is if we bring Wormtail right in front of them, lift up his left sleeve and show them his bloody dark mark.

"But I need your help. I'd never be able to do any of this on my own. I'm _eleven_! No one would listen to me, even if I am the so-called _boy-who-lived,_" Harry said, rolling his eyes in irritation at the name. "But we need to handle this really _really_ delicately. Wormtail is a serious and legitimate threat."

"Wormtail?" Minerva asked.

"Sorry. _Peter_. Wormtail was his nickname that my dad, Sirius, and Moony err, Lupin gave him," Harry shad, shaking his head. "Anyway, like I said, I'd just kill him if I weren't such a selfish bastard. But I want Sirius free. Problem is that I _know_ that the safest thing would be for Peter to just die now."

"Wait, I'm sorry Mr. Potter, but I'm a bit confused," Dumbledore said, raising his hand to interrupt Harry.

"Pettigrew is the one who will most likely be responsible for helping Voldemort get his body back," Harry said with an exasperated sigh. "If we hand him over to the Ministry, we need to try and pressure them into delivering a Kiss as a sentence, and as early as possible. If Pettigrew gets to Azkaban, he'll just transform into his animagus form and escape. If he's held in the Ministry's holding cells for too long, he'll either escape on his own, or an old death eater who is working for the Ministry will help him escape in secret.

"I've seen over a dozen different potential future scenarios for how Voldemort gets a full-powered body back in the coming years, and out of those dozen, in eight of them he is aided by _Pettigrew_."

"You've had visions about Voldemort's resurrection?" Dumbledore asked, his face slightly pale.

Harry nodded, his face slightly solemn. "Loads of them. In a few of them he tries to capture me so he can use my blood in the ritual. _Blood of the enemy_, or something. But the actual resurrections are nothing compared to the war. In some of my visions it gets... it gets bad. Really bad. Too many people die, and I won't let it come to that. I'm going to end him as soon as possible, but there's a bunch of stuff I have to take care of so that I can make him mortal again, and it'll take some time. Plus I need to train. I need time to become stronger. I may have the knowledge in my head, on how to destroy him, but my body isn't strong enough yet."

"You say you know how?" Dumbledore asked, his interest suddenly reaching a new peak.

"Yes, sir, I do. This actually brings me to another thing I wanted to ask you for."

"Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"I was hoping that perhaps we could arrange special lessons for me with a number of the different professors."

"What sorts of special lessons?"

"Well... I was thinking that perhaps, starting next term when I've gotten a better grasp on working with a wand that I could meet with Professor Flitwick and he could teach me about dueling. I was also thinking that you and I could meet every couple weeks for an hour or two and I can explain some of my visions to you, and we can work on some problems that I'm going to need your help with.

"Also, I know that at eleven, it's unlikely that my body could manage the transformation yet, but I was hoping that next year, Professor McGonagall might be willing to help me learn to perform the animagus transformation. I already know I'm capable of it and I'm going to have a rather... interesting form," Harry grinned to himself but pressed on, despite the curious look he got from Minerva.

"I was also hoping that you could try to convince Professor Snape to teach me Occlumency; preferably starting as soon as possible."

"Why would you need to learn Occlumency?" Dumbledore asked with obvious curiosity in his eyes as he leaned forward on his desk.

"Voldemort and I will share a connection once he's able to gain a physical form again. I'll actually be able to see into his mind, but I'll have trouble controlling it unless I get Occlumency training. Plus once Voldemort figures out what's going on, he'll figure out how to send me false images and try to lure me into traps using it."

"You seem to have really planned through a lot of this," Dumbledore mused with a smile.

"I've had a lot of years to plan. This is my first real opportunity to start putting those plans into motion. There's really only so much training I could do on my own before now."

"Yes... I imagine without the ability to use magic, you were rather limited."

"Oh, I've been using plenty of magic... did your instruments really not show any of it?" Harry asked, suddenly. This was something that he had been curious about for a very long time. It was one thing for his parselmagic to go undetected by the ministry's generic trace spells, but he figured that all of the sensors that Dumbledore had placed around Privot Drive had to have picked up _something_ over the years.

Dumbledore looked at Harry rather curiously. "What do you mean?"

Harry's head cocked slightly to one side and his eyes grew distant for the briefest of moments before he turned his head and stared directly at a number of curious silver instruments supported on spindly-legged tables to one side of Dumbledore's desk. One was whirring while another seemed to randomly emit little puffs of smoke.

Harry pointed at the one puffing smoke. "That monitors the wards at Privet Drive, and the one next to it monitors any magic use within the wards," Harry said. It wasn't even phrased as a question, it was merely a statement.

Dumbledore hesitated for the briefest of moments before he nodded. "Yes, that is correct."

"The one that detects magic really never went off?" Harry asked, rather surprised.

"No. It never did."

"For real?" Harry said, honestly stunned now. "I've been using magic for almost two years now. Nothing huge, of course... I suppose the biggest things I've done are a few basic transfigurations. But I've been performing summoning, banishing, shrinking, and cleaning charms, on a daily basis."

"How is that even possible?" Minerva asked, shocked. "You're magical core shouldn't have even been developed enough to perform magic at that point, and if you had been casting magic with a wand, the ministry would have detected it."

"I wasn't using a wand though," Harry said, hesitantly.

"Surly you're not suggesting that you've been performing _wandless_ magic!"

"No, of course not." Harry said, quickly.

"Then how?" Dumbledore asked kindly now, but the intense curiosity shown brightly in his eyes.

Harry looked nervously from one professor to the next before finally heaving a heavy sigh and pulling his right sleeve up, revealing the small shrunken adder, wrapped around his wrist.

"Because of my connection with Voldemort, I'm a parselmouth. I've been focusing my magic through my familiar instead of a wand, and speaking the spells in parseltongue... so I guess I've been using parselmagic."

Minerva's hand flew up to her mouth to stifle her gasp and her eyes went wide. Dumbledore's eyebrows rose slightly into his forehead, but that was the only outward reaction Harry could discern.

"Parselmagic? Can you show me?" the headmaster asked.

Harry shrugged and looked down at Addy, who turned her head and looked back up at him and smiled... well, to Harry it looked like she smiled because he'd known her for so long and he just sort of _sensed_ that sort of thing from her.

Harry looked around for a moment, trying to decide on an object to summon. He settled on a book that was sitting on top of a stack of other books on a table across the room.

He stretched his hand out, focused his mind on _that specific book_ and hissed _§Accio book§._

The book instantly flew off the stack, soared across the room, and straight into his open hand.

"Without a wand," Minerva whispered, in shock.

"Well, yeah, but I'm still focusing my magic through Addy, so it's not like I'm really doing _wandless_ magic."

"Addy?" Dumbledore asked.

"My familiar. Uh, my snake," Harry raised his wrist so that Dumbledore could get a better look at her.

"She's been magically shrunk," Dumbledore observed.

"Yeah, I found her when she was still pretty small, but it's been a few years since then, and she was growing pretty fast. She was getting too big for me to keep her hidden from my relatives, so I tried a shrinking spell on her. It's pretty convenient really. Makes it a lot easier if she can just wrap herself around my wrist like this."

"You called her your familiar?" Dumbledore hedged with a grin.

"Yes. She and I magically bonded not too long after I first found her. She's a true familiar, not just a pet."

"How old were you when this happened?" Minerva asked.

"I was nine."

"A nine year old bonding with a familiar and using wandless magic," she said in disbelief and falling back into her chair.

"I told you, it's not really wandless. I focus through her," Harry insisted again, holding his wrist up.

"That is still a form of wandless magic, Mr Potter," Dumbledore said gently with a smile. "This snake, it is a common adder, is it not?"

"That's right."

"It is not a magic snake," Dumbledore stated.

"No... I suppose not. Although with as much magic as I channel through her, she's becoming magical. She'll live a much longer life than a common adder would. I've already seen it."

"Yes, that is true, but she is fundamentally a non-magical creature. A wand has a magical core that helps a wizard to hone in and enhance their magic. If a wizard were to use just a stick of wood, it would do nothing for them. It's the magical core in the center that truly holds all of the power. Your snake does not have that."

"But I can't perform magic without her. I've tried," Harry insisted.

"Were you speaking in parseltongue when you tried?"

"Oh... no."

"Parseltongue is supposed to lend itself to enhancing and dramatically strengthening the power behind a spell. One of the reasons it is associated with darkness is that there are a number of spells that require so much power that they cannot be cast without speaking parseltongue, and those spells happen to be particularly dark in nature.

"The most powerful parselmagic spells also happen to be some of the darkest spells a single person can cast."

"I haven't done any dark magic, I swear," Harry said quickly. "You can cast normal spells in parseltongue too. The spell I used to summon the book was just _Accio_, only hissed in parseltongue instead of spoken in English."

"I know, Mr. Potter. It's alright. You don't have to convince me, however I would urge you to be careful about who else you reveal your unique talent to," Dumbledore said, giving Harry a piercing gaze.

Harry nodded. "Believe me – I know. I'll be careful."

Dumbledore nodded and then smiled. "So... you've been performing magic for the past two years?"

"Yes, sir. I still can't believe that your instruments really didn't detect it. Honestly, if parselmagic can go undetected by your instrument, that's a pretty significant flaw seeing as how my biggest enemy is a parselmouth, himself."

"That is is, Mr. Potter... that it is," Dumbledore said, nodding gravely.

Harry nodded his head as well and then yawned loudly. "Sorry," he mumbled sheepishly.

"That's quite all right, Mr. Potter. It is quite late, after all. Perhaps we should call it a night."

"What about my request for private lessons?"

"I will take it into consideration and speak with the other teachers."

"Alright... but... don't talk to Quirrell."

"Oh? Is there a reason you would like to keep this from _Professor_ Quirrell?"

Harry made a face and seemed to pause a moment to collect himself.

"That's a discussion I'll have to save for a future date. Soon, but not right now. Just... don't share any sensitive information with him, alright? Especially pertaining to me."

"Alright Mr. Potter."

"Good. And what about Wormtail?" Harry asked, his eyes turning hard again as he glared down at the still unconscious rat.

"I will be taking him to the Ministry as soon as possible to begin getting the situation sorted out. You have my word."

Harry sighed and smiled softly. "Thank you professor."

"Thank _you_ Harry for trusting me and coming to me," Dumbledore said, smiling softly. He turned his attention to his deputy headmistress. "Minerva, do you think you could escort young Mr. Potter back to his common room? No need for the boy to get in trouble with Mr. Filtch for being out after hours," he paused for a moment but seemed to think of something more, "and please return here when you're done."

"Yes, headmaster, of course."

Minerva let a visibly exhausted Harry Potter out of the Headmaster's office and back to the Gryffindor common room where she left him before making her way back to Albus.

"Well, that was unexpected," Dumbledore said as Minerva reentered his office and resumed her seat.

Minerva rose her eyebrow at him. "You could say that," she said, somewhat sarcastically.

"What do you think?"

"Honestly, Albus? I have absolutely no idea what to think."

Dumbledore nodded his head and sighed before looking down at the rat still sitting on his desk.

"Well, I guess we have some business to deal with. Shall we confirm that this is in fact Mr. Pettigrew?"

Minerva's lips thinned as she looked on, icily at the rodent and nodded her head.


	6. Book 1: First Week

**Chapter 5: First Week**

Harry had a real struggle in getting up the following morning. He usually got up fairly early so he could go on his morning jog, but he also usually went to bed quite a bit earlier than he had the previous night.

"Come on, Harry! We're going to miss breakfast!" Ron whined. "We still have to actually _find_ the great hall, too. This castle is so large and the passageways are so crazy, it'll take ages just to do that."

"It's not _that_ bad, Ron," Harry said as he stretched and yawned.

"Are you saying that you know how to get there?"

"Sure, I've dreamed about this castle for years. I already feel like I know it like the back of my hand."

"Well then hurry up and get dressed! I'm starved and I want to get to breakfast."

Harry chuckled and shook his head. "Sure, sure. Just give me a minute. Hey Nev, why don't you wait and we can all go down together."

Nevile looked up and smiled brightly before nodding his head.

Fifteen minutes later the three of them walked into the great hall and made their way to the Gryffindor table to find Hermione sitting there with her nose in a book.

"Morning 'Mione," Harry said cheerfully as he sat down beside her.

"'Mione?" she asked, apparently surprised by the nickname.

"Yeah. Is that alright?"

"Oh... I suppose," Hermione shrugged and closed her book, setting it on the table beside her.

"He called me 'Nev' this morning," Nevile said, as his ears turned a little pink and he looked down at his plate. Harry didn't miss the tiny smile gracing Nevile's face.

Harry chuckled and shrugged.

"What, I don't get a nickname?" Ron said as he began piling food onto his plate.

"It's sort of hard to shorten 'Ron' anymore than it is, already. Unless you want me to call you 'Won-won'," Harry said, snickering.

Ron looked at Harry in confusion, but Harry just shook his head and laughed. "Never mind, Ron."

"Is that a nickname from his future?" Hermione asked in a whisper as she leaned in closer to him.

"Er... sort of. Lavender Brown calls him that for a while in 5th year... or at least, she might. Obviously that's a while from now, so the whole thing might not even happen."

"Lavender Brown?" Ron asked grimacing and looking both confused and somewhat upset. "Why would _Lavender Brown_ give me a nickname like 'Won-won? Do we become friends with her too?"

Harry just shrugged, and looked away, trying to hide the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Hermione glanced at him and rose a single questioning eyebrow. Harry smiled and chuckled, causing Hermione to roll her eyes, and crack a smile. He had a feeling that _she_ probably understood_exactly_ why Lavender Brown might give Ron a silly nickname in five years' time.

"So what's our first class?" Ron said, apparently done with being confused by the nickname topic.

Hermione instantly pulled out a piece of paper that she'd gotten earlier from Professor McGonagall. "First is Transfiguration, then Charms in the afternoon."

Ron turned to Harry, "So what do we have to expect, mate?"

Harry laughed. "You know, you could just wait a half hour and actually see it for yourself."

"Yeah, but a little advanced warning would be great."

"Alright... well, McGonagall is gonna come off as really strict and a bit frightening, but she's actually really great... don't ever tell her I told you that. She'll totally deny it. Oh, and she really won't cut anyone any slack in her classes, so don't even try to pull anything.

"She's an animagus and she can turn into a cat. For the first class, she's gonna start with a demonstration where she turns her desk into a pig and sends it running around the classroom, and then she'll have us start trying to transfigure a matchstick into a needle."

"That it? A match into a needle?" Ron asked, apparently disappointed by this.

"Just wait till you try it. It won't be as easy as it sounds. Plus, you've gotta start small," Harry said, shrugging.

"What about Charms?" Nevile asked.

"Uhm... well, Professor Flitwick is pretty cool. He used to be a nationally ranked dueling champion. He's really short, and has to stand on a stack of books so he can see everyone. First class is gonna be all theory so we'll just be reading and doing some question and answer stuff."

"Blimey Harry, I can't even imagine how you know all of this stuff," Nevile said.

Harry shrugged. "I won't be able to do that for every day, just a few days here and there that were more memorable than most. And things won't always go exactly as my visions have. Things are always changing. All someone has to do is change their mind and do one thing differently and the ripples can change loads of other incidents, even those that seem completely unrelated."

"The Butterfly Effect?" Hermione said.

"Exactly," Harry said.

"The whut?" Ron asked.

"The butterfly effect is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory; namely that small differences in the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system," Hermione said in her usual way of quoting textbooks. It made Harry smile.

"Wha?" Ron looked at her blankly and Hermione rolled her eyes and huffed.

"It's about small and seemingly insignificant events having profound effects on things that you wouldn't expect them to. A butterfly flaps it's wings in Brazil, and that somehow causes a Tornado over Texas." Hermione continued on.

"But that doesn't make any sense!" Ron said.

"Oh never mind," Hermione said with exasperation causing Harry to start laughing. She tried to scowl at him, but ended up smiling despite herself.

–

The classes passed just as Harry had predicted. In Transfiguration, Harry managed to transform his matchstick into a needle using his wand on his third try. It felt odd doing transfigurations through the wand – and, of course, speaking the incantation in English rather than parseltongue. All of his spells, oddly enough, felt a bit _weaker_ than he was accustomed to. He realized it must be the difference between speaking the magic in parseltone versus English. It had never really occurred to him just how big a difference this would make.

Professor McGonagall looked on approvingly at the perfect silver needle and gave Harry a small pile of matches and told him to keep practicing. He did so while simultaneously providing some coaching to Hermione, who also managed the transfiguration 15 minutes later. They each then set to trying to help Ron and Nevile, who had each at least managed to turn their needles slightly silver by the end of class. McGonagall awarded both Harry and Hermione 5 points each and a rare smile.

By the end of the day, the group had homework from both their transfiguration and charms classes – a fact which did _not_ thrill Ron in the slightest.

The group were gathered in the Gryffindor common room after dinner, and Hermione instantly got started on her charms homework. Harry was about to pull his out as well when Ron started whining that they had until Wednesday before they had either class again, and pleaded with Harry to play a game of Wizard's Chess with him.

"Um, Ron... I don't think you really want to play chess with me," Harry said, smirking.

"Why not? You think you're good? Because I'm _really_ good. None of my brothers, except Bill, can ever manage to beat me."

"Ron," Hermione groaned in exasperation, "Harry is a _seer._ You do realizing that you're challenging a seer to chess, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but you couldn't have seen every game of chess we've ever played in a vision, and you even said yourself, that all I'd have to do is change my mind and everything would go in a different direction," Ron said, turning back to Harry.

Harry was actually a bit surprised and impressed that Ron had remembered and understood that much. "Well, yes, but I also have my waking visions. I can get little tiny updates in my head to any immediate changes that happen when someone makes a new choice about something."

"But that's like cheating!"

"Is it cheating if it's something I can just do, naturally, and without waving a wand or saying a spell?"

"Well... yes!"

Harry laughed. "Well, then you _don't_ want to play chess with me, because I'm very competitive and if I play against you, I'll play to win."

Ron narrowed his eyes and pushed the sleeves up on his robes as if he'd interpreted Harry's statement as some kind of personal challenge.

He nodded his head in determination. "Well, lets see what you've got. Come on! Play me a game!"

Harry grinned and shrugged. "It's your funeral."

–

Thirty-five minutes later, Harry leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms and gave a smug smile to Ron. "Check mate."

The fairly large group of people who had gathered around them actually cheered, and Ron collapsed into his chair and groaned.

"I can't believe that you two played a single game for that long!" Hermione exclaimed. Even she had gotten so swept up in it that she set aside her parchment and watched.

"That was intense!" Ron exclaimed.

"You're really good, Ron," Harry said with a smile and a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "You plan your strategies really far in advance... problem is I could always see them."

"And flawlessly counter every bloody one of them," Ron grumbled.

"I told you you didn't want to play against me," Harry chuckled.

The chess match had actually involved a whole lot of sitting and staring at the board in utter silence. Every time Ron would dedicate to a strategy, Harry's eyes would glaze over a bit and his head would tilt slightly to the side and he suddenly had the perfect way of defeating it.

"Alright mate. You win. No more wizard's chess with you. Hey Nevile – do you know how to play?" Ron said, turning to Nevile with a hopeful smile.

"Um... I guess," Nevile said, hesitantly.

"Well come on over here, then!"

–

Harry woke bright and early the next morning. He went down into his trunk's work room; fed Addy, got dressed in his loose muggle exercise clothes, and then, with Addy wrapped around his wrist, he left Gryffindor tower and the castle to run around the lake.

When he was sure there was no one around, within hearing distance he'd keep up some light conversation with his familiar and first friend.

After a lap around the lake he practiced his katas before finally heading back up to his dormitory and returning Addy to her aquarium in his trunk.

This would be Harry's morning routine for all the coming weeks, as well.

Tuesday was Herbology and History of Magic, Wednesday brought Transfiguration and Charms again, and then Wednesday night at midnight the Gryffindors had to make their way up the Astronomy tower for stargazing. Thursday was Herbology again, and then Defense Against the Dark Arts – a class that everyone else had been looking forward to with an air of excitement, and which Harry had been downright dreading.

The class was entirely uneventful, and everyone was thoroughly let down by the odd, and strange smelling Professor Quirrell. Harry was just relieved that nothing unexpected had happened.

Ron had obviously noticed during the course of the week that his rat had gone missing, and had turned the dorm upside down looking for him Tuesday and Wednesday. He was still moping about on Thursday, and kept asking his brother Percy if Scabbers had ever run off for any long periods of time while Percy had him as a pet at Hogwarts, but his brother had no idea where the rat might be either.

Thursday night at dinner, a rather depressed looking Ron turned to Harry, one more time and repeated the question he'd been asking over and over again during the last couple days.

"Do you have _any_ idea where he is? Is he ever coming back?"

Harry sighed. He had been telling Ron that he hadn't seen _anything_about Scabbers at all and didn't really have any helpful information.

"Ron..." Harry began hesitantly, and speaking slowly. "I don't honestly see Scabbers ever coming back. I think he either ran of or... I don't know, maybe he got eaten by Mrs. Norris?"

"Eaten!" Ron wailed. "That bloody demon cat better not have!"

Ron slumped down against the Gryffindor table and looked utterly miserable.

Harry shared a worried glance with Nevile and Hermione before sighing. It really was _his_ fault that 'Scabbers' was gone, so it really was his job to try and cheer Ron up.

"Look, Ron, how about if Scabbers never turns up, I promise to get you a new pet for your birthday? And you can pick this one out. You could get an actual _magical_pet this time, instead of a common garden rat."

"For real?" Ron gaped as he suddenly perked up. "But how come? Harry, you don't have to buy me anything! It's not like it's your fault that he ran off."

Harry fidgeted slightly in his seat and looked a bit uncomfortable. Hermione apparently noticed and gave hair a piercing look.

"Look, I don't need any more real reason to do it than the fact that I _can_and I know it'll cheer you up," Harry said shrugging. "Besides I know how dissapointed you were that you couldn't get a proper pet for school."

"You'd really be willing to get me a pet for my birthday?" Ron asked, hesitantly.

"Sure, why not?"

"But nothing big, like an owl?" Ron hedged, hesitantly.

"I don't see why not. If you want an owl, then an owl is fine."

"I don't know, Harry... that's a lot of money -"

"Don't you dare," Harry said, cutting him off. "You already know my stance on stuff like that. The money is utterly meaningless to me."

"Alright, alright." Ron said with a sheepish grin, but then he hesitated. "Um – my birthday isn't until March though. If we do it for Christmas instead it'd probably be easier to get to Diagon Alley..."

"Nope," Harry said, and Ron looked up at him confused.

"I've already got something else in mind for Christmas," Harry grinned.

"You already know what you're getting me for Christmas?" Ron said, surprised.

"You and Nevile. Yup."

Nevile looked up now, equally surprised.

"Me?"

"Yes. I'm taking the two of you to Ollivander's and getting you wands."

The two just started at him, utterly dumbstruck. Hermione, however, just looked confused.

"But they've already _got_ wands," she said.

"They've got _second-hand_ wands," Harry said. "A wand won't work nearly as good for you if it's not matched with you. You know how you two had more trouble than 'Mione and me turning the matchsticks into needles? I bet it would have been much easier if you'd had wands that were properly matched to you."

"I'm more inclined to think that you guys did better because you're both ridiculously smart, and read too much," Ron said, looking doubtful.

"Well, yeah, our study habits, and my... unique advantage, probably did play a big role in it, but that's besides the point. You two would still have a much easier time at working your magic if you had wands that chose you, instead of trying to use someone else's wand."

"It's still way too much though," Ron said, shaking his head. "Wands are _really_ expensive, Harry! There's no way I could let you buy me one. My parents would never let me hear the end of it."

"I consider it an investment in my own security," Harry said.

"Huh?" Ron asked.

"The sooner you and Nevile get wands that are matched for you, the sooner you'll start really getting in touch with your magic, and the stronger your grow. Being anywhere near me is a hazard to anyone's health in the long run, and it would be irresponsible of me to become close friends with people without making sure they had the means to properly protect themselves if the need ever arose.

"It's the main reason I never bothered to become friends with any of the muggle kids I went to school with, growing up. I knew that they'd never be able to protect themselves if anyone ever tried to use them against me by threatening them or something."

"Do you honestly think that could happen?" Hermione asked with an obviously worried look on her face.

Harry sighed and nodded. "It _could._ I intend to make sure it never does, but personally, I prefer to prepare for the worst, and hope for the best."

Nevile was holding his wand in his hand and looking at it with a rather sad expression on his face. Harry leaned in closer and patted him on the shoulder gently.

"Honestly, I think that that wand should be in a case and displayed proudly up on a wall. You should keep it safe and protected. My mum and dad's wands are in a case in the Potter's family vault at Gringott's. They were placed there after they died because it was in their will. Potters don't like being buried with their wands like some wizards, but we keep them, and preserve them so we have something to remember our ancestor's by."

"Who's wand is yours from?" Ron asked, looking at Nevile. "Mine was my brother Charlie's."

Nevile's ears turned pink and he looked down at his wand thoughtfully.

"It was my dad's," he whispered.


	7. Book 1: End of the Week

**Chapter 6: End of the week**

Harry told the others to meet him later up in the common room as he pulled Nevile into a deserted classroom.

"What is it Harry?" Nevile asked, looking nervous.

"There's something that I think you deserve to know, but I didn't think you'd want me to say it in front of the others.

Nevile looked even _more_ nervous at that, but steeled himself against whatever was coming.

Harry took a deep breath, and began speaking. _"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not..."_

"What was that?" Nevile asked in a hushed voice.

"That was the prophecy made the winter before we were born that caused Voldemort to come after me and my parents. It never specifically mentioned me or my parents by name, but my parents had defied Voldemort-" Nevile flinched, "on three separate occasions, and my mum was pregnant and due at the end of July. Thing is, they weren't the only ones that matched that description. There was one other couple who had also defied him three times, and who were pregnant and due at the end of July..."

"My mum and dad. Me," Nevile gasped.

Harry nodded.

"The only reason he picked me is because I was born on July 31st, and you were born on the 30th. Even though he figured I was the child of prophecy, he intended to kill you too anyway, just to be safe."

Nevile gasped.

"His death eaters didn't know about the details of the prophecy, but they knew he was going after the Potters and the Longbottoms, so when he disappeared after coming after us, his most loyal followers became frantic, trying to figure out why. My parents were already dead, and Dumbledore had spirited me away somewhere and none of them could find me – not like a 15-month old baby could provide them with any answers anyway – so they went after the only other source that they knew was associated with his disappearance..."

"That was why the Lestranges came after my parents?"

Harry nodded.

"Yes. But your parents were strong. They protected you. The Lestranges knew that Voldemort was coming after _the__Longbottoms_, but they didn't know that _you_and were the specific target. If your parents had cracked and told them about the prophecy, the Lestranges probably would have gone after you, just in the hopes that you were the child of prophecy, and killing you would do something to bring back their master.

"Your parents were strong, and fought with all of their might so that they could protect you, and protect the whole wizarding world.. They never revealed the prophecy."

Nevile sat quietly for a very long time after that, looking pensive. Finally he nodded his head and looked at Harry.

"Thanks Harry."

– –

Friday morning came and still Harry hadn't heard anything from the headmaster about what they'd talked about the night before classes started. Not a word about Wormtail, or anything about the private lessons he'd requested.

He also hadn't yet figured out a way to tell his friends about Addy. He was planning to introduce her to them all this weekend, but he still wasn't quite sure how he was going to go about actually telling them.

At breakfast Harry got a note from Hagrid asking him to come for tea that afternoon, and Harry sent a quick response back saying he'd show up, and quickly finished his breakfast.

Today was their first potions class, and they shared it with the Slytherins.

The group made their way from the Great Hall down into the dungeons. The students all gathered in the empty classroom, sitting two to a table. Harry sat with Nevile and left Hermione to help Ron. Once the time chimed the doors to the dungeon burst open an in strode a pale, sallow skinned man with greasy black hair, and black obsidian eyes. He scowled darkly at everyone before going to stand behind his desk and taking the register. When he reached Harry Potter's name he sneered and made a rather snide remark about Harry's celebrity status causing Draco Malfoy and the two enormous boys Harry had frequently seen with him to snigger.

Professor Snape began with a triad about foolish wand waving, and then about how he doubted that few of them could appreciate the subtle beauty that is _Potion Making_.

Harry forcefully refrained from rolling his eyes. He knew he had to handle this situation very delicately. He needed Snape's help if he was going to learn Occlumency from him, and he knew it would be far easier to learn the subject from him if the two of them could be at least somewhat civil to each other.

The real question was whether or not Harry could actually pull it off. He decided that the key was to get Snape to stop focusing on the fact that he was James Potter's son, and remember that he was also Lily Evan's son.

Harry supposed it was time to use some of that cunning deceitfulness the hat had spoken about.

"Potter!" Snape yelled suddenly. Of course, Harry knew this was coming, so it didn't actually surprise him.

"Yes sir?" Harry said, quickly, sitting up at attention in his seat and giving the potions master his full attention.

Snape narrowed his eyes at Harry for a moment and then continued, "What would I get if I mixed the powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Hermione's hand shot into the air, but she kept her eyes trained on Harry.

"Asphodel and wormwood, sir? Isn't that the Draught of Living Death? It's a sleeping potion, I believe."

Snape blinked and then sneered.

"Alright, _Potter_," he spat the name, "where would you look if I asked you to find a bezoar?"

Harry paused and tried to look thoughtful. Hermione's hand was in the air again and she was looking back and forth between Snape and Harry anxiously.

"A bezoar... If I recall correctly, that's a rock you find in the stomach of a goat that can cure most poisons, sir."

Snape's upper lip twitched and Harry could see Snape's jaw clench.

"Very well, _Potter, w_hat is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"Uh... nothing, sir. Aren't they the same plant?"

"Trying to show off, Potter?" Snape spat.

"Not at all, sir. I'm actually really fascinated by potions. It was one of my mother's favorite subjects so I've been studying it for sometime now," Harry said with as innocent a face as he could muster.

Snape actually flinched at the mention of Harry's mother. He hesitated for only the briefest of moments before spinning around and walking over to the blackboard. A quick flick of his wand and the directions for a simple boil removal potion appeared there.

Snape spat at the class to get stared and sat down at his desk while everyone scrambled to gather the needed supplies. Once everyone had gotten started, Snape started walking slowly around the class berating the work of almost everyone in the class except Draco Malfoy, whom he seemed to like for some reason.

Nevile was clearly intimidated by Snape's imposing presence, and nearly ruined the potion twice.

The hairs on the back of Harry's neck prickled and he just barely managed to grab Nevile's hand and stop him from adding the crushed nettles while the potion was still boiling, which would have resulted in a nasty explosion, and a melted pewter cauldron.

When class finally drew to a close Harry told his friends to go on without him and that he'd explain later. He lingered behind until everyone else had left and he was left alone with Snape.

"What do you want, Potter?"

"I was wondering if professor Dumbledore spoke to you about teaching me occlumency."

"Perhaps he did, but I see no reason why I should take extra time out of my already busy schedule to give extra lessons to an arrogant little boy that thinks he's entitled to special privileges just because he's supposed to be a celebrity," Snape sneered.

Harry's face remained impassive; staring calmly at the greasy haired man and waiting patiently for when he was finished.

"I know you're aware of the prophecy, sir. After all, you are the one who initially overheard it and told It to Voldemort in the first place."

Snape looked both stunned and utterly furious. He began to sputter something, but Harry spoke first.

"I also know that you and my mother were friends before either if you ever went to Hogwarts. That, despite being sorted into rival houses, the two of you still tried to continue that friendship. I also know that you were treated horribly by my father and his friends because he fancied my mum, and was jealous of all the time she spent with you.

"I would like to point out to you that I am _not_ James Potter. I am Harry Potter, and it is my responsibility to destroy Voldemort when he comes back - which he will. I've already seen it and it is _not_pretty. We only have a hand full of years left before it happens and I need to take advantage of every moment I have to train and prepare if I want to stand a chance if killing him before it escalates into a full blown war."

Harry squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. Snape actually looked utterly stunned. "Sir, I'm not insisting on an answer immediately, but please consider my request. Ask Dumbledore to tell you about my... _special circumstances_. Tell him I said it was alright for him to explain."

Harry turned and took a few steps towards the doorway but paused. "I know you loved her," he began to speak quietly over his shoulder. "She's the real reason I'm alive today. I think it's utter rubbish that everyone goes on and on about the _boy-who-lived_ when all I did was drool and lay there. She was the one whose power and magic destroyed Voldemort's body; not me. She sacrificed her life so that I could survive and live to grow stronger and bring an end to this dark lord once and for all. Even if you want nothing more than to hate the very air I breath; please consider doing this... if not for me, then for her."

With that Harry left the dungeons to find the others, go to lunch, and pay a visit to Hagrid.

– – –

Their visit with Hagrid was relatively uneventful. It was a very simple affair involving tea in enormous mugs and rock cakes that Harry quickly and subtly warned the others not to try unless they didn't mind chipping a tooth.

After a very loud greeting by Hagrid's enormous boar hound, Fang, Harry introduced Hagrid to his new friends. The three of them then helped Harry explain some of the details about his seer's sight to Hagrid. It was a real relief to have _someone else_ do the explaining this time. He really didn't enjoy having to go over it again and again. He felt like he was just repeating himself and hated feeling like a broken record.

He did more than enough repeating of things in his sleep.

Harry didn't tell Hagrid anything about the prophecy, and had informed his friends ahead of time not to mention it. It wasn't that he didn't trust Hagrid... it was just that Hagrid was terrible at keeping secrets. And the honest truth was that the fewer people who knew that there even _was_ a prophecy, the better.

Hermione noticed a newspaper clipping on the table talking about a break-in at Gringott's Bank.

"Oh, I'd heard that there was a break in! Can you believe it? I'd heard the bank was supposed to be impenetrable. That no one had even successfully broken in before," she said, reading over the clipping.

"Nothin' was stolen though," Hagrid said, diverting his eyes away from the four first years gathered around his over-sized table.

"Harry, this says that the break-in was on the 31st of July. Isn't that your birthday?" Hermione asked, looking up.

Harry blinked. "Yeah. I'm surprised you know... did I tell you?"

"It's mentioned in the _Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts."_

"'_The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts'_ lists my birthday?" Harry asked incredulously.

"That's not the point," Hermione said, exasperated, "didn't you say that you went to Diagon Alley and ran into Hagrid at Gringott's, on your birthday?"

"Oh, yeah, I did."

"You could have been there when it happened! You could have been at the bank when the robbers got in!" Hermione gasped.

"Whoa!" Ron said, apparently very interested now.

Harry glanced over at Hagrid who was decidedly not meeting anyone else's eyes.

"It says that the vault was emptied earlier that day. I wonder if the owner of the vault suspected that someone was after it?" Hermione continued, looking back down at the paper.

"Hey, Harry – you ever have any visions about Gringott's being robbed? Any idea who did it?"

Harry blinked three times and twisted up his lip for a moment while three pairs of curious eyes were trained on him. He glanced over at Hagrid again, who now looked up rather suddenly, with a worried, cautious expression on his face.

Harry sighed and shrugged. "Yeah, actually."

"Yeah? Yeah, what? You know who did it?" Ron asked with wild, excited eyes.

Harry leaned back in his chair and sighed again.

"Sort of... but I can't tell you yet."

"What! Why not?" Ron asked, visibly hurt.

"Because it'll throw things out of whack if you know too soon," Harry said with a shrug.

"What! No fair! You know! Why can't you tell us?"

Harry just shot his friends, who were now all looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and hurt. He sighed and looked over at Hagrid. "Hagrid knows. Ask him."

"WHAT!" Hagrid gasped as all eyes suddenly trained on him. "I do not know who did it!"

"Well... okay, you probably don't know _who_ did it," Harry quickly conceded, "But you know about the robbery. You know about the item that was in the vault, and you know where it is now."

"You do!" Ron, Nevile, and Hermione all said, focusing intently on the half-giant who was now, noticeably unsettled and getting a rather flustered look about him.

"I do not!" Hagrid quickly denied, although his rigid, nervous, posture, and the wild, fearful look to his eyes made the denial rather weak.

Ron and Hermione gave him rather skeptical looks before turning back to Harry.

"Why don't you just tell us?" Ron whined to Harry.

Harry chuckled and shook his head.

"Not now. Maybe later. I still need to plan out some things. I'm also hoping to get some updates on coming events in my dreams over the next week or two. After I get a better feel for what sort of changes I've made, I'll think about filling you guys in on some other stuff. It really doesn't matter though. I know you're curious, but this isn't something that you guys have to worry about."

"Harry's right," Hagrid said, nodding his head. "This is really non a'yer business. What was in that vault is the private business of headmaster Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel."

Hagrid's eyes widened suddenly and what was visible of his face from behind the enormous bushy beard and hair suddenly pinked.

"Shoudn'a said that. Shoudn'a said that..." Hagrid grumbled to himself.

"Nicholas Flamel?" Hermione said, her eyes lighting up.

Harry sighed and shook his head.


	8. Book 1: Down in the Workroom

**Chapter 7: Down in the Workroom**

Harry climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room and heard his name called out from across the room by someone the fireplace. He turned towards the voice to see Seamus jogging over to him with a folded up piece of parchment in his hand.

"Hey Seamus, what's up?" Harry asked as his dorm mate came up to him.

"I was given this and asked to give it to you," he said, handing over the envelope.

Harry took it, feeling the excitement raising in his chest. He turned it over and smiled widely at the long, slanted, writing he recognized as belonging to Dumbledore.

"What is it, Harry?" Hermione asked, standing beside him.

Harry quickly broke the seal and opened it up to read it.

_Mr. Harry Potter_

_I was hoping that you would join me in my office after dinner tonight. I have news pertaining to the individuals we discussed the night of the feast, and would also like to discuss your request for certain extra lessons._

_I trust you already know where to go. Oh, and I'm quite fond of Acid Pops._

_Albus Dumbledore_

Hermione gasped. "Is that a letter from the headmaster?"

"Dumbledore? No way!" Ron said, standing on tip toes over Harry's shoulder and peering down at the letter.

"Ron! That's rude! Don't try to read Harry's letter!" Hermione scolded.

"You looked at it too!"

"I didn't _read_ it! I just recognized the writing and he signed his name at the bottom!" she defended.

"It's alright," Harry said.

With that, Ron and Nevile both quickly peered at the letter and began reading. Hermione hesitated for the briefest of seconds before finally looking over Harry's other shoulder and reading it herself.

"You talked with the headmaster after the feast?" Hermione asked, looking rather confused.

"I couldn't sleep that night and went out after curfew. I went to his office and talked with he and Professor McGonagall."

Hermione looked horror stuck.

"You went out after curfew!" she shrieked. "Harry! You're not supposed to be wandering the halls that late. You could have lost us house points on your _first night here!_"

"I had things I needed to talk to him about," Harry defended. "I didn't want to wait, and I knew I wouldn't get a good opportunity again for several days."

"What did you need to speak to the headmaster about?" Hermione asked, still looking rather scandalized, but the curiosity that was filling her was beginning to win out.

"A number of things. My visions, mostly."

"And what's this part about lessons?" she asked.

"I asked if he could try and talk Snape into teaching me Occlumency."

Ron made a choked coughing noise. "You asked for _extra_ lessons with _Snape!_"

"I need it. That reminds me, actually. I need you guys to try and help me stay on Snape's good side... or... well, his neutral side, at least. It's going to make my work a whole lot harder if he hates me."

"Snape hates everyone," Ron said.

"_Professor_Snape," Hermione corrected with a reproving look at both Ron and Harry. It actually made Harry grin.

"I need _Professor_ Snape's help," Harry continued, "he's really the only one who can teach me Occlumency... well, Dumbledore could, and he'd probably be a _much_ better teacher too, but he's too busy to dedicate enough time to it."

"What's Occlumency?" Nevile asked, looking rather confused. Ron and Hermione appeared to wake up to this question at this point as well. Ron looked at Hermione but even she seemed at a loss.

"What _is_ Occlumency?" Hermione asked, looking at Harry.

"It's the art of _occluding_ one's mind. It's the counter to Legilimency," Harry said.

"And what the devil is Legilimency?" Ron asked, looking frustrated.

"Mind reading!" Hermione gasped. "I read something that mentioned that. Legilimency is the art of breaking into, and reading someone's mind. Harry! Why do you need to keep people from reading your mind?"

Harry looked around and saw quite a few eyes trained on them from across the room, but they had been talking quietly enough that he didn't think too much of their conversation had really been overheard.

He quickly took note that both Seamus and Dean were down in the common room so he motioned for the others to follow him and lead them up the stairs.

Hermione seemed a bit nervous going up the stairs to the boy's dormitories, but finally huffed and followed.

The four gathered into the 1st year boys dormitory and gathered around Harry's bed.

"So?" Hermione prodded as soon as they were settled.

"Okay, so you know how I told you guys that I have a sort of connection to Voldemort," Harry began, and tried to fight the urge to roll his eyes when the tree of them flinched at the name. "Sort of through my scar? I think I mentioned that once he gets a physical body back, that I'll actually be able to sporadically read his mind and he might eventually figure out how to send me false visions?"

"Oh! I get it!" Hermione gasped.

"Wait, I don't. What?" Ron asked, looking bewildered.

"Harry doesn't want to risk You-Know-Who reading his mind. If he can occlude his mind, You-Know-Who won't be able to send false visions or anything like that," Hermione explained.

"Oooh..." Ron said slowly and Nevile nodded, also having just really gotten it.

"The thing is that it can take a long time to learn to build really powerful Occlumency shields," Harry continued, "and Voldemort," they flinched, "is one of the most powerful legilimense ever. So I really need to start the Occlumency lessons as soon as possible."

"But with Snape?" Ron said with a grimace. Nevile also looked rather ill at the prospect of any more time than absolutely necessary spent in the company of Professor Snape.

"Like I said," Harry said, "I need to try and stay on his good side. He holds a really nasty grudge against me because he went to school with my dad and the two of them were rivals. My dad and his friends used to prank Snape on a daily basis. He sorts of pre-hates me because of it, so I've got a rough road ahead of me," he sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. "So _please, please_ try not to do anything to antagonize him."

Ron grimaced again and rolled his eyes. "Fiiine," He said with sigh. Hermione shook her head at Ron's dramatics.

Harry turned his attention to Nevile, "Hey Nev... do you mind if you and me always partner up in that class? I can help you out and make sure you don't you know... blow anything up," Harry smiled apologetically. Nevile actually looked relieved by this and nodded his head enthusiastically.

"Great," Harry said with a relieved smile. Snape would be a lot easier to deal with if he wasn't made additionally angry with the Gryffindors because a few of them kept melting and exploding things in his class. Unfortunately, until Nevile got some more confidence built up, Harry knew he was the one who would be doing most of the melting and exploding.

Harry sighed and looked around the room for a moment before his eyes fell upon his trunk. He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, steeling himself against what he knew he needed to do.

"Hey guys?" he began, hesitantly.

"Yeah, Harry?" Ron replied.

"While you guys are all up here and we've got some privacy... I've got someone I've been meaning to introduce you all to."

"Someone?" Hermione and Nevile both asked at the same time.

"Uh... yeah," Harry said and then cleared his throat. "Okay, so you guys know how I told you I'm a parselmouth?"

"Yeah..." Ron said hesitantly.

"Well, I've got a pet snake... although, she's really not a _pet_, so much as –"

"Wait!" Ron interrupted him suddenly, his face going red. "You've got a pet _snake!_ Is that what happened to Scabbers! Did you're snake _eat_ him!"

"Huh?" Harry replied, oh so eloquently, in startled surprise. Hermione's eyes grew wide and she had that look on her face that she got when she finally understood something. "What? No! No! I swear Ron, she didn't eat your rat!"

"How do you know!" Ron exclaimed, his voice reaching an awkwardly high octave.

"Because she's too small! Scabbers is bigger than _she_ is!" Harry said, quickly, but Ron looked dubious. "Come on. Let me just show her to you."

Harry jumped up and walked over to his trunk, turning the dial around the lock properly and finally opening the lid to reveal the ladder disappearing into blackness.

Hermione gasped, "You've got a space expansion charm on your trunk! How big is it?"

"It's a mid-sized room, I guess. I use it as my work room. Addy's cage is down there. Don't worry, it's not as dark as it looks from up here. Once you get down inside, it's fully illuminated. Come on," Harry said a he stepped inside and began to climb down the ladder.

The three remaining Gryffindors looked hesitantly between each other before Nevile, of all people, got up the courage and followed Harry down. Hermione went next, followed by a still rather irritated looking Ron.

As the group came into the room inside the trunk they looked around and took in the space. Along one wall was a workbench with several cauldrons of varying sizes, crystal phials, pewter scales, and a cabinet filled with various potion ingredients. Half of the opposite wall was lined with bookcases, and the remainder of that wall had a table with a decent sized open aquarium and a charmed heating lamp above it.

Beside the aquarium was an owl perch, and then a small cabinet that appeared to hold various pet supplies. Ron expected his attention to be drawn directly to the evil snake, but instead his eyes were drawn to a large and extremely odd looking wooden contraption along the wall opposite the ladder and between the mini potions lab and the pets.

"What the bloody hell is that?" Ron said, looking at the weird object with confusion.

"Huh? Oh," Harry said as his eyes followed Ron's gaze. "That's a Muk Yan Jong."

"A whut?"

"It's a wooden training dummy. Um... they're from China. Originally created by the Kung Fu masters for practice."

"Kung what?" Ron said, still obviously bewildered beyond words.

"You've never heard of Kung Fu?" Harry dead panned. Harry didn't _know_ kung fu, he'd only really studied karate, himself, but the training dummy worked really well for a lot of different martial arts. Harry wondered suddenly if wizards hadn't heard of karate either. "Have you at least heard of karate?" he asked.

"No, what is it? Some muggle thing?" Ron asked.

Harry's eyes traveled to Nevile, who looked equally bewildered. Harry's jaw dropped. He knew wizards and witches were isolated, but this was ridiculous! He looked over at Hermione who was looking at the two confused boys with as much shock and surprise as Harry. At least _she_ knew what it was.

"Blimey," Harry said and shook his head in disbelief. "Well you two have no idea what you're missing out on. I can't believe that magical folk don't know anything about martial arts! It's ridiculously useful."

"You know martial arts?" Hermione asked, looking curious.

"Yeah, I've been going to karate classes since I was six."

"Wow. How good are you?" she asked, actually looking curious. Harry was rather surprised at this. He knew that, as a general principle, Hermione really frowned on violence.

"Well, I've got a brown belt, and was really only a month or two away from qualifying for my black belt, but it's really a 'junior' black-belt, because you know... I'm only _eleven_. Even if I got my black-belt now, I'd have to retest for my adult black-belt when I turn 16 or 17 to prove that I'd really earned it."

"Black-belt?" Ron asked, but Hermione cut him off.

"Oh, Harry! That's really incredible, isn't it? I mean, isn't a black-best in karate supposed to be a big deal?"

Harry shrugged. "Well, sort of. I think that movies and things give a lot of people the wrong perception about the belt system. It's really a symbol of your dedication and the amount of time you've put into your training."

"Would one of you please explain what you're going on about!" Ron yelled, looking frustrated.

"Look, it doesn't really matter," Harry said, raising his hands in a placating manner. "It's a kind of hand-to-hand combat. You know, _Fighting._"

"Fighting? For real?" Ron exclaimed.

"Yeah. Karate is a fighting style that originated in Japan on the Ryuu Kyuu Islands. Kung Fu originated in China. I don't do Kung Fu... that's a totally different discipline, but the training dummy works for both. I transfigured it myself for practice.

"But, _anyway_," Harry continued, trying to pull the conversation back on topic, "we came down here for another reason, if you'll recall," Harry said as he motioned towards the aquarium where a small snake was perched on a large curved branch, watching them.

"You transfigured _that!_" Hermione gasped, looking back at the Muk Yan Jong. Harry groaned and gave Hermione a look that said, _Not now, later,_and she huffed in frustration, turning to look at the snake.

"Anyway, as you can see, Ron, she's too small to have eaten Scabbers," Harry said as he walked over and stood beside the aquarium and reached his hand in, offering it to the snake. She slithered up onto his arm without a moments hesitation and made some hissing noises.

Harry grinned and when he chuckled it actually sounded a little hiss-like, causing the three Gryffindors to gawk at Harry.

The snake was only 10 inches long, and quite thin. It was obvious that she would have considerable trouble opening her mouth wide enough to even get over Scabber's head, and there was no way that the rat's entire body would ever fit inside her. She was unquestionably far too small to have eaten Ron's large, fat, rat.

Harry brought his arm up as the snake coiled around his wrist and rest her head in the palm of his hand. He reached his arm out as if offering her to his friends so that they could see her better.

"Guys, this is Addy," Harry said with a smile as the three crowded in and looked closer at the snake. _§Addy, this is Hermione, Nevile, and Ron,§_ Harry said to the snake. He looked back up and saw his three friends had turned slightly white and were staring at him.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Was that parseltongue?" Hermione asked, curious awe in her voice.

"Oh, yeah." Harry nodded.

"What'd you say?" Ron asked in a hush.

"I just told her your names," Harry said, shrugging.

"None of that sounded like _'Ron'_ to me," Ron said, dubiously.

Harry chuckled and shrugged. "I honestly don't know what parseltongue sounds like to everyone else. To me it sounds just like English."

"Really?" Hermione asked and Harry nodded. "Say something else to her."

"Alright," Harry said, turning back to his snake. _§Hey Addy, how has your day been? Not too bored down in here, I hope?§_

_§Horribly bored. I do wissh I could go to classs with you,§_ the snake sighed.

Harry's face fell slightly. _§I know... I'm sorry. I've got a meeting with the headmaster tonight, so you can accompany me.§_

_§Really?§_the little snake asked, visibly perking up.

Harry nodded and smiled. _§Yup! Definitely.§_

"What'd you say?" Hermione asked as she suddenly began firing off questions. "Was she talking back? She was hissing too! You can really understand it? It really sounds just like English? Even when a snake is speaking?"

Harry laughed and held up a hand to slow her down. "Uh, She told me that she's been really bored down here and wishes she could go with me to classes. I told her about how I've got a meeting with the headmaster tonight and that I'd take her with me then."

Ron and Nevile's eyes widened and they shared a look for a moment.

"Is that really a good idea, Harry? Albus Dumbledore is supposed to be a really light wizard. I don't know how he'd feel about you being able to speak parseltongue," Ron said cautiously.

"Oh, he already knows about Addy. I took her with me when I visited with him and Professor McGonagall that first night after the feast."

"And they were both okay with it?" Nevile gasped, apparently really surprised by this.

"Yeah, sure," Harry said, not really sure what the big deal was.

"I can't believe you would be willing to tell them that," Ron said, shaking his head.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm not ashamed of Addy. She's amazing, and she was my first real friend. She's my familiar, actually."

Hermione gasped and her hands flew up to her mouth. "That's impossible!" she shrieked.

"Huh? No it's not," Harry replied, confused.

"Harry, you're too young! How could you have a _familiar_? I'm talking about a _real_ familiar, Harry. Addy is just your _pet_."

"No she's not," Harry said, shaking his head. "She and I started the familiar bond just a couple months after I first found her. She's fully bonded to me now. I've been using her for magic for years."

"No way!" Ron exclaimed, but Hermione was still shaking her head in disbelief.

"But how? How could you have been using her for magic? You're under-aged, Harry, and unless you had an accredited private tutor, you couldn't have been using magic at home without the Ministry for Magic coming and giving you a reprimand!"

Harry grinned sneakily and shook his head. "The Ministry's trace doesn't detect parselmagic."

Nevile gasped, this time. "Parselmagic?" he squeaked.

"Yeah. It's how I transfigured all of the furniture in here before starting school," Harry said, motioning towards the various things in the room. "In the beginning I just had some really simple stuff in here like a camp bed, and a desk, but I realized real fast that I wasn't going to be sleeping down here, but that I could really use the space for some other things. I took what furniture I did have, and threw in a bunch of extra junk from my cousin Dudley's broken toy collection and transfigured the lot of it into some useful stuff."

"Permanent transfiguration? Harry, that's seriously advanced stuff! You shouldn't be able to do that yet!" Hermione said.

Harry just shrugged. "It's taken me the last two years to get any good at it, but I've been practicing. Besides, none of the furniture in here is all that complex or special. It's all just really plain and made of wood. Even the muk yan jong is fundamentally simple, it just looks weird."

"If you can transfigure _that,_" Hermione said, motioning towards the large wooden training dummy, "why on earth did it take you three tries to turn a match into a needle?"

"Oh, well that's easy," Harry said, but Hermione just raised a single impatient eyebrow at him. "In class I have to use my wand. I'm not used to that. I've never done magic with a wand before. Not in real-life anyway. In my visions – yes, but not in person."

Now the other three just looked incredibly confused.

"Not using your wand?" Hermione echoed in disbelief. "Then what have you been using?"

"I told you, I've been doing parselmagic with Addy."

"But that doesn't make sense!" Hermione yelled, shaking her head.

Harry huffed. "Here, I'll show you," he said as he rotated his hand and Addy adjusted her position so that her head now came to hug along the top of his hand. Harry reached out towards the potion's lab on the opposite wall and flicked his wrist while making a hissing sound. A book that was laying there open on the desk suddenly flipped closed, stood up on one corner, did a little pirouette and then fell back down and reopened to the same page it had been on before.

"Wicked!" Ron said.

Hermione sucked in a sharp breath and then turned back to look at Harry with incredibly wide eyes. "Harry! That's wandless magic!" she shrieked. Harry cringed at her shrill voice and sighed.

"Yeah, that's what McGonagall said Sunday night. I still don't entirely buy it. I mean, I focus my magic through Addy. I _feel_ it focusing through her, so I don't honestly buy the whole 'wandless' thing."

"Addy is _not_ a wand, Harry," Hermione said flatly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I _know_."

"So you can do wandless magic with a snake, but you have trouble with doing magic _with_ a wand?" Nevile asked, drawing Hermione's attention to him.

"I know! Isn't that ridiculous!" she shrieked.

Nevile actually looked rather frightened by Hermione's intimidating presence and Harry had to hold back a chuckle.

"I'm just not used to a wand yet. I'll get accustomed to it with practice," Harry said, shrugging."

"On man! No wonder you're so good in class," Ron began to whine and Harry turned to look at him, slightly confused by his reaction, "you've been doing magic for _years_ without getting in trouble! You're probably way ahead, even without your visions showing you how to do all these other things! No fair! I wish I could have been doing magic all this time without getting into trouble, but mum's a real sticker for the rules," Ron finished by crossing his arms and jutting out his lip slightly in a rather humorous looking pout.

Nevile actually snickered lightly and Hermione rolled her eyes.

Harry smiled softly and sighed. "Yeah, but honestly Ron? I'd trade lives with you any day of the week, in a heartbeat."

"Whut?" Ron looked stunned.

"You've got a huge family that loves you, and they're all _alive_. No one will ever _expect_ you to go fighting death eaters, you can probably live your entire life and never have to _kill_ _anyone_. I'm _destined_ to do it. I honestly have no choice. I mean, sure, I could just turn tail and run from all of this, but... I mean... _no!_ I just can't do that. And on top of all of that, there is the very real possibility that I'm gonna have to _die_ to fulfill my _glorious_ _destiny_. Honestly, I'll be grateful if I get to see my fifth year," Harry finished with a defeated sigh as he leaned back against the bookcase and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his robes.

The other three children just stared at him in stunned silence. They were finally shaken from it by the sound of some hisses from Harry's right-pocket.

"Oh, sorry, Addy," Harry mumbled as he pulled his hand out of his pocket to reveal a snake, that the kids could have sworn looked quite irritated.

Harry hissed something to her, she hissed something back, and after a minute of this, Harry finally cracked a smile and sighed, releasing quite a bit of stress from his shoulders.

"Sorry guys," he said finally, returning his attention to his friends. "I didn't mean to dump on you. Sometimes it's just hard."

"Do you really think you'll have to die? I mean... can't you... _avoid it_ or something? Since you know it's coming?" Ron asked, quietly.

Harry looked up and the sadness and defeat that the three children saw in his eyes for a brief moment was hard to take. Harry blinked and looked away, recovering himself quickly.

"I... I'm not really sure, Ron," Harry said quietly as he stared at some speck on the wall. "I'm not sure that this is something I can avoid." He let out a slow breath and shook himself. "It doesn't matter. I've got time. I'll work something out. Come on, lets talk about something else. The atmosphere in here sucks." He chuckled and the others smiled weakly.

Harry felt Addy give a brief squeeze on his wrist and looked down and smiled at her. She seemed to nod her head at him and he glanced back up at the others.

"Anyone wanna hold her?"


	9. Book 1: A Chat with the Headmaster

**Chapter 8: A Chat with the Headmaster**

_§Where are we going? This isn't the way we went to the Headmaster's office before?§_ Addy hissed quietly as Harry made his way quickly through the halls.

Harry had left early from dinner and told his friends he had to run a quick errand before he could go to the meeting with Dumbledore. He'd gone back to his dorm room to get Addy first, and now he was making his way down the seventh floor corridor towards a large tapestry of a man trying to teach trolls to do ballet.

_§I need to get ssomething before I go to Dumbledore'ss office,§_ Harry hissed back as he paused in front of the tapestry and looked at the blank wall opposite it.

_§There doessn't appear to be anything here...§_ Addy hissed back doubtfully.

Harry smirked down at his wrist for a moment before he began pacing back and forth while thinking, _I need a room to hide something, I need a room to hide something, I need a room to hide something..._

On the third pass a door appeared.

_§Or I could be wrong,§_Addy hissed and Harry chuckled.

The room beyond the door seemed to be a graveyard for broken junk. A mountain of broken and damaged furniture, thousands upon thousands of books, many of which looked to be banned; chipped bottles of congealed potions, several rusting swords, and even a bloodstained axe were littered around the expansive room.

Harry walked slowly, looking around the room with wide, curious eyes. He lingered at several piles of books, making note to come back with his trunk when he had more time to sift through the room's treasures. As it were, he was on a timetable so he had to force himself to hurry up and went straight for his goal.

A few minutes later, Harry was leaving the room with a jeweled tiara stuffed into the large pocket on the right inside seam of his robes, and making his way towards the headmaster's office.

At the gargoyle he gave the password and rode the spiral staircase up. As he rose his hand in the air to knock on the door a soft voice called out from the other side.

"Come in, Mr. Potter."

Harry smiled slightly to himself and pushed the door open. He walked into the office and nodded his head slightly. "Good evening professor."

"Good evening to you too, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said with a smile and motioned to the chair in front of his desk.

"Feel free to call me Harry. You always do in my visions of the future and I'm more used to it. It's sort of weird having you call me Mr. Potter," Harry said sheepishly as he sat down in the overstuffed armchair.

Dumbledore smiled and his eyes twinkled as he nodded. "Fine. _Harry._ So how has your first week been? Everything you expected?"

"It's... it's great to finally be here," he said quietly with a soft smile and a distant look in his eyes. A moment later they refocused and he looked back at his headmaster. "Is there any news, sir? About Pettigrew and Sirius?"

Dumbledore sat back in his chair. "Straight to the point, I see. Yes, Harry, there is news."

Harry sat up straighter in the large squishy chair. His feet didn't quite reach the floor in it and he felt a bit dwarfed by it.

"Mr. Pettigrew was questioned by the Aurors earlier this week, and then before the Wizengamot under Veritaserum on Wednesday. Thursday Sirius Black was released from Azkaban and brought to the Ministry to give his testimony. He has been exonerated and declared free and innocent. He is currently resting at St. Mungo's. This will all appear in the Daily Prophet in tomorrow's morning edition," Dumbledore sat back with a large smile across his face as he watched the stunned boy's expression morphed into an ear-to-ear, face-splitting smile.

"Really!" Harry gasped, almost afraid that it was too good to be true.

"Really," Dumbledore replied with a twinkle and a nod.

"YES!" Harry exclaimed, jumping up and pumping his fist into the air. "I did it!"

Harry did a brief victory jig that caused Dumbledore to chuckle lightly. A moment passed and Harry's excitement left him suddenly and his face got more serious as he turned his attention back to his headmaster. "What about Wormtail?"

Dumbledore sighed and leaned forward on his desk, forming as steeple with his hands. "He has been sentenced to life in Azkaban and been given potions that prevent him from transforming into his animagus form. His cell has also been charmed to prevent the transformation.

Harry's face fell. "But he hasn't been kissed?"

Dumbledore nodded his head with a solemn look. "No."

Harry expelled a heavy breath and fell back down into the overstuffed chair. "Well... I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Not really much else we can do right now."

"That would appear to be the case," Dumbledore agreed.

"Well, at least I got Sirius out," Harry said, nodding his head with determination and letting a small bit of his smile return. His head popped up and focused on his headmaster. "Can I go see him? In St. Mungo's, I mean? Can I visit this weekend?"

Dumbledore seemed a bit surprised by this request. "We don't usually allow first years to leave the school aside from the holidays."

"But you would let them leave to visit a family member in the hospital!" Harry protested immediately.

"Well, yes..." Dumbledore began slowly, "however Sirius is still incredibly weak and will be recovering for some time now –"

"He needs to see me," Harry interrupted. "He needs a reason to get better. A _reason_ to keep trying. The reason he didn't fight when the aurors first took him after Pettigrew framed him and faked his death was because Sirius blamed himself for my parents death. It was his idea to be a decoy and switch to Pettigrew as the secret keeper. He blames himself. He thinks he's all alone in the world – thinks that I'd blame him for my parents deaths. I need to be there to let him know that I _don't_ blame him. That I _need_ him. If he knows he's needed, he'll get better faster."

Dumbledore sat back in his chair and observed Harry for a long thoughtful moment.

"I suppose you could pay St. Mungo's a visit, however you would need an adult to take you and to supervise your visit. And you must understand that he may not even be well enough to have visitors. If the medi-witches turn you away, you must respect their wishes and return to the school."

Harry's face lit up and he nodded excitedly. "That's fine. They'll let me in," he said it with such certainty that Dumbledore wondered if it was part of the boy's seer's sight, or if he was just so determined that he'd make it happen whether the medi-witches wished to allowed it or not.

"Can I use your floo? I mean, once I find someone who will take me?" Harry asked suddenly. "I assume that you won't let me go down to Hogsmead to use the floo from the Three Broomsticks... I suppose I could ask Professor McGonagall if I could use her floo..." Harry continued, muttering slightly to himself.

"You may use my floo," Dumbledore said with a smile.

Harry beamed up at him and nodded his head. "Great! Thanks."

"Well, with that mattered settled, we do have other things to discuss," Dumbledore said, sitting forward and folding his hands together upon his desk. "Professor Snape came to me this afternoon and informed me that he is now willing to assist you with your request for Occlumency lessons. I was actually quite surprised, since when I first mentioned it with him earlier this week, he seemed quite determined to refuse."

"He and I spoke briefly on the subject today after potions class," Harry said, answering the silent question that Dumbledore was asking with his twinkling eyes.

"Ah. It must have been some conversation. I have rarely seen Severus quite so... quiet."

Harry smirked. He wasn't sure exactly what that meeting might have entitled, but he had a feeling that he had probably left the potions master rather befuddled and confused.

"Did you explain my seer's sight to him?" Harry asked.

"I did. He said that you gave permission, I hope that was true."

"It is. Thank you for explaining it. I'm getting kind of tired of explaining it myself," Harry said looking down at his lap.

"Have you told many?" Dumbledore asked with a hint of concern behind his eyes.

Harry shrugged. "Not many. Just the people I trust. I don't want to have to hide, or pretend to be something I'm not, with the people I really trust and who I want to trust me back. How can I expect anyone to trust me if all I ever do is lie to them?"

Dumbledore's smile widened and his eyes twinkled as he nodded his head to Harry.

"I try to avoid actually _lying_ as much as I can," Harry continued, looking rather thoughtful. Dumbledore couldn't help but think that it was an odd expression to see on an eleven year old boy. "I have to omit things... I prefer to simply _not_ talk about certain things so that I don't have to actually lie about them. There are some things I can't tell people, but I don't want to lie to them if I can help it."

Harry fell quiet and his eyes appeared unfocused and quite distant as he seemed to ponder something far away. Dumbledore finally broke the silence after a few moments.

"As for the other lessons you requested..." he let the sentence linger in the air and Harry refocused on him.

"Yes sir?" Harry asked as he blinked and returned to the moment.

"Professor McGonagall has agreed that she will watch you, in class, for signs that you may be ready to begin animagus training. She didn't expect that there would be much chance of it succeeding for several years since, as a rule, the younger a person is, the harder it is for them to achieve the transformation. You, however, seem to be more in-tune with your magical core than your peers, and given your propensity for wandless magic, she feels there is the possibility that you could be ready to start the training by next term, or first term of next year."

Harry smiled and nodded his head enthusiastically. "That would be brilliant."

"Professor Flitwick said that he would prefer to watch your progress in class longer before committing to teaching you any dueling techniques. He found the idea of trying to teach a first year to duel as rather hard to grasp, but wasn't entirely averse to the idea. He had trouble believing that you would be ready for any of the standard beginners dueling spells. Professor McGonagall and I told him that he may be surprised, so he chose to reserve judgment until he had more opportunities to watch you."

Harry nodded his head. This was about as much as he expected. The idea of a first year even being _able_ to cast expelliarmus or a protego was a pretty hard one for most to believe. He'd never had anyone to practice expelliarmus on, but he had managed a rather iffy protego a couple times... using his parsel magic, of course. Having an actual instructor would make a world of difference, but there was no doubt that Quirrell wouldn't be able to teach him anything useful this year in Defense.

"I was wondering, Harry," Dumbledore began, pulling Harry from his musings, "if you wished to have any special sessions with Professor Trelawney?"

Harry blinked. "Professor Trelawney?"

"Yes, Harry. Our divination teacher?"

"Yes, I know who she is. She's the one who made the original prophecy."

"Ah. Yes. That she did," Dumbledore said. "Would you be interested in speaking with her about your unique ability? There aren't many people who understand such a gift."

"And Professor Trelawney is not one of them," Harry deadpanned. "Thanks for the offer Professor, but I'm afraid that discussing my ability with her wouldn't do me any good. As things are right now, I already have a much better control of my gift than she has over hers. Her sight is so sporadic and uncontrolled that it's almost worthless. She never remembers any of her 'real' visions, and wastes her time trying to identify non-existent shapes in mushy tea leaves."

"It would seem that you and Professor McGonagall are of the same mind, on this issue then," Dumbledore conceded with an only partially concealed grin.

Dumbledore sat forward and refocused on the young man sitting before him. "Well, I suppose that really only leaves one last matter. You mentioned in our last meeting that you and I could meet to discuss your visions – I assume as they pertain to the return and destruction of Lord Voldemort?"

"Yes, sir. Actually, I brought something with me pertaining to that subject."

"Oh?" Dumbledore said as his eyes widened slightly in curiosity.

Harry shifted and reached inside his robes and pulled something out and sat it on the desk in front of Dumbledore.

The headmaster looked at the object for a moment trying to identify what it could possibly have to do with their discussion. He focused on it and made several revelations in the span of a second.

For one thing, the object in front of him appeared to be the lost diadem of Lady Ravenclaw – an object that had been lost since the time of the founders! Second, and most disturbing, was that the object seemed to be entirely corrupted by darkness. It radiated of some sort of very very dark magic.

"Harry, what is this?" Dumbledore asked in a whisper as he eyes remained trained on the diadem that sat before him.

"It's a Horcrux."

Dumbledore's eyes shot up and his jaw dropped open. It was not often that someone said something that could catch him so entirely off guard, but this was most definitely one of those times.

"What?" Dumbledore gasped.

"Tom Riddle learned about Horcruxes when he was still a student, here at Hogwarts. He found some book in the restricted section that not only described them, but actually explained how to make them. It really is ridiculous that Headmaster Dippet could leave such a dangerous book in a school library," Harry shook his head sadly.

"In Tom's seventh year – the year he was head boy –" Harry rolled his eyes, "he found the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets and went down in there. He took control of Slytherin's Basilisk and used it to kill Myrtle. He used her murder as the catalyst to create his first horcrux."

"Wait, wait –" Dumbledore gasped, holding his hands up for Harry to pause. "Basilisk? And when you say _first_ horcrux..."

"That's right. I'll come back to the Basilisk thing later – first we need to focus on the horcruxes. Tom Riddle decided that to come closer to being immortal than anyone else ever had before him that he was going to split his soul into seven pieces, since seven is the most magically powerful number."

"Seven," Dumbledore said as he fell back into his chair with a rather pale and stunned expression on his face.

"Yeah, the first one that he made by killing Myrtle is a diary. It's the diary that he kept during his years as a student at Hogwarts, and he's rigged the thing to do some nasty stuff if it ever manages to get back into the school, and into the hands of a student."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, if they write in it, it'll possess them and use them to reopen the Chamber. The diary is currently in the possession of Lucius Malfoy, but there's actually a really high possibility that he'll just hand it over to one of the Weasley's next summer."

Dumbledore's eyes widened but he didn't interrupt.

"The next horcrux is a ring that belonged to Marvolo Guant, who was Riddle's maternal grandfather, and a wizard who descended from Slytherin. As for collecting that one, I absolutely _insist_ that when we go get it that _I have to be there_. And you... well, you have to promise that you will _listen to me_ or else I won't let you come. I'll take Snape instead... and I don't want to take Snape – I'd rather you come with me, but if I think there's a chance of things going... badly, I'll take Snape instead."

Dumbledore seemed entirely stunned by Harry's statement but nodded slowly, assuming that the boy must have a good reason.

"The next one is a locket that belonged to Merope Gaunt, Riddle's mother. It was handed down through the generations. Originally it belonged to Slytherin himself. We'll need Sirius's help to get the locket."

"Sirius? Why?"

"It's in his house."

Dumbledore blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Regulus Black stole it. Tom never found out though. As far as he's concerned it's still hidden in this cave filled with infiri. Regulus went and retrieved the horcrux with the help of his family's house elf, Kreacher. Regulus couldn't escape the cave so the infiri got him, but he told Kreacher to take the locket and escape."

"Really?" Dumbledore said with curious look to his face. "And the remaining horcruxes?"

"Well, one of them is this," Harry said, pointing to the diadem. "It's Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, if you hadn't figured that out yet. It was hidden in the school. When Tom came back to the school to apply for the position of defense teacher, he slipped into the Room of Requirement and hid it."

"The Room of Requirement?"

"Yup. He thought he was one of the only people to ever figure out how to get to it. You've actually been in there once. I think you needed to use the loo, and the door appeared and you entered to find a room filled with shiny chamber pots or something."

Dumbledore actually laughed. "Fascinating..." He paused for a moment, "I always wondered what his true ulterior motive was for applying for the position. I knew he didn't honestly wish to be a teacher."

Harry nodded. "The next horcrux is probably going to be the hardest one for us to recover."

"Oh?"

"Yes, it's Helga Hufflepuff's cup. Tom stole it from an old witch named Hepzibah Smith while he was working for Borgin and Burkes. The problem is that right now it's inside the Lestrange Family Vault in Gringotts."

Dumbledore's face grew thoughtful. "Hmm... that is a problem."

"We can't just go in and steal it either because it'll end up in the news. If it ever gets back to Voldie that the Lestrange Vault got broken into, his horcrux will be the first thing that comes to mind. If he finds it missing, he'll check on his other's and if he realizes that someone has been collecting and destroying his oh-so-perfect backup plan, he'll make more and then we'll be screwed. It took me years of visions to figure out where these ones were all hidden. I don't know how long it would take me to get any information on any additional ones he may make."

"Yes. We'll have to handle the one in Gringott's with delicacy. So is this all of them?"

Harry hesitated. "Not... exactly. There's another one that he may make, when he gets his body back. He takes on a snake as a familiar. The snake's name is Nagini, and he'll make her a horcrux and use her as sort of an extension of himself. He'll be able to control her through the piece of his soul he puts inside her."

"But she isn't a horcrux _right now_?"

"No."

"So that's it?"

Harry sucked in a breath and looked away at a speck on the wall while he chewed on his lower lip.

"Not exactly."

"There's another?"

Harry shook his head and finally returned his gaze to his headmaster. "The last one is my problem. Don't worry about it."

"I'm afraid I can't quite accept that Harry," Dumbledore said with a slightly sterner tone than usual.

Harry shook his head, but his expression was grim. "I'm still working out the details. I'm hoping that some more visions will come to me. We've got time. Voldemort shouldn't get his body back till my forth year. Third at the earliest," Harry's eyes unfocused again and his head tilted ever so slightly to one side before he sighed and shook his head again. "I need more time to figure some things out. I'll come to you when I've made some more sense of things."

Harry shook and took a deep breath to clear his head. "Anyway, we need to destroy that thing," He nodded towards the diadem. "The only ways I know of to destroy a horcrux is either fiend fire, or basilisk venom. In some of my visions we used Gryffindor's sword, but it only worked because it imbibed the qualities of the basilisk venom."

Harry paused and blinked a few times at the utterly bewildered expression on his headmaster's face.

"The sword is goblin-made. Goblin-made artifacts can imbibe the qualities of things they're exposed to," Harry began to explain but this didn't seem to do anything to reduce his headmaster's confusion.

"Oh... right. Um... well, I have absolutely no intention for it to actually to play out this way now, but at one point in my future, I saw the possibility of me ending up going down into the Chamber of Secrets and I had to kill the basilisk with Gryffindor's sword. It was exposed to the venom then."

Dumbledore's eyes grew remarkably wide at this, but his face still remained mostly impassive.

"Does this mean you know where to find the sword of Godric Gryffindor?"

Harry opened his mouth for a second and then shut it again, looking thoughtful. He turned and looked across the room. Dumbledore followed his gaze and it almost appeared as if the boy was looking at the _sorting hat_ of all things.

Harry stood up and walked over to it briskly and started at it for a moment. He turned back and looked at Dumbledore, "May I sir?"

"Of course," Dumbledore replied, both curious and mystified.

Harry picked up the hat and looked it over for a moment. It remained static and lifeless. Harry reached his hand _inside_the hat and it actually appeared to go much, much deeper than it should.

Harry had his eyes closed and a look of concentration, etched on his face. A moment later he withdrew his arm and there, in his hand, was the ruby-encrusted hilt of a sword. He continued to pull until the entire length of sword had materialized from the hat. Harry looked the blade over with a smile. He returned the hat to it's perch and walked back to the headmaster's desk, where he set the sword down.

Dumbledore's mouth was actually hanging open slightly and he quickly snapped it shut.

"I didn't think that would work unless I was actually in danger," Harry mused as he smiled down at the sword. "But when I thought about it... I just sort of _knew_ it would work. I just had to try." Harry shrugged and looked back up at his headmaster.

"You truly are full of surprises, Harry. Full of surprises." Dumbledore shook his head and chuckled lightly to himself. "So what is this you've been saying about the Chamber of Secrets? I assume it means you know how to access it?"

"I do. But I'm the only one who will be able to open it. You need to be a parselmouth. That's also why I should go to help retrieve the Guant ring. You'd be able to get it yourself, but it's be a thousand times easier if I do it."

"Is that the only reason you insisted on going to retrieve that object? You mentioned taking Severus. It sounded as if you didn't want _me_ to go."

"I don't want you to go," Harry said with a sigh. "Honestly... I've seen any number of visions where you die because of that damn ring. I really don't want to risk it, but I don't want to involve Professor Snape in the whole horcrux mess if I can avoid it."

"My death? Is that so?" Dumbledore asked with what Harry found to be an annoyingly calm look to him. A part of Harry wanted to growl at the old man for being stupid and letting himself get hurt for no good reason, but none of those events he remembered had actually happened yet. And as far as Harry was concerned, he'd never allow them to happen at all so he held his tongue.

"Yes, it's so. So just promise me, that _no matter what_, you won't go after that horcrux without me. Okay?"

Dumbledore hesitated for a moment, causing Harry to growl in frustration. "At the very least, if you think you've come across some irrational reason to go without me, you _have_ to talk to me about it first. There are things about it that you _have to know_ or else you'll end up getting yourself killed."

"Why don't you tell me these things now?" Dumbledore asked in a kind, simple manner while he folded his hands together on his desk.

Harry huffed. "I can't. Not yet." He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. "Anyway... about destroying _this_ one. Any ideas? I don't fancy going down into the chamber right now, and I'm a bit scared of the idea of fiend fire."

"I am fairly confident that I can take care of it," Dumbledore said.

Harry sighed and shrugged. "Fine, fine. Alright, plan of attack from here on out; I'll look into getting someone who can come with me so I can visit Sirius at St. Mungos. Once he's recovered from his stay there, he can take us to Grimmauld Place and we can go get the locket. My gut is telling me it'll take about 2 weeks before the medi-witches clear Sirius to leave the hospital, so we can plan to make the trip at some point after that."

Harry looked up and saw his headmaster giving him a skeptical and appraising look. Harry realized suddenly that Dumbledore didn't seem to be entirely sold on the idea of Harry coming _with_ him to get the locket.

"Look, there's nothing protecting that locket... well, okay, there is a completely mental house elf guarding it, but no curses, evil potions, or armies of infiri or anything. There is seriously _no_ danger in me going with you to get it, and _I'm_ the one who knows where the blasted thing is."

Dumbledore sighed. "Alright Harry, you can come with."

"Good. Well, unless you have something else specific to mention, I think I'll head out. I've got to find a _babysitter_ so I can go visit Sirius," Harry sighed and rolled his eyes.

"I believe that is enough for now, Harry. I should be available in my office for most of the weekend, except for meals. When you find an escort, you can either bring them here, or tell them they can floo in, directly to my office."

"Great. Thanks, again."

"You're welcome, Harry."


	10. Book 1: Hello Sirius, I'm Harry

**Chapter 9: Hello Sirius, I'm Harry**

"So what happened?" Ron said, shooting up out of his seat as Harry came racing in through the portrait hole.

Harry, however, didn't stop to talk, and raced up the stairs and towards the first year's boy's dormitory.

"Harry? Hey! Wait up!" Ron shouted.

Ron, Neville, and Hermione began to clamber out of their seats and make their way towards the stairs when Harry appeared at the top of the steps with his bag in hand and made his way back down.

Bewildered, the three first years resumed their seats and watched their friend as he sat down in one of the overstuffed arm chairs around the same study desk that Hermione was sitting at. He pulled out a piece of paper and a quill and just as he placed the tip to paper he froze.

"Uh... Harry?" Hermione asked, cautiously as she leaned in and tried to get a better view of Harry's lowered face.

"Tsk – damn it," Harry muttered under his breath as he suddenly dropped the quill to the table and sat back with a rather frustrated look on his face.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Ron asked standing up and sitting in one of the other chairs around the table. Neville quickly followed suit and the three sat around the round study table, waiting for Harry to respond.

He sighed heavily and roughly grabbed the parchment and began to stuff it back into his bag.

"I was going to write to Remus and ask him to escort me to St. Mungo's, but he must be unavailable or something because he won't respond for nearly a week if I write him right now," Harry groaned and folded his arms across his chest in a rather childish looking pout.

"Who? And why on earth do you need to go to St. Mungos? Are you hurt?" Hermione asked, worriedly.

"Huh? Oh, No! Sorry," Harry said quickly, shaking himself and sitting up straighter. "Dumbledore wanted to let me know that my godfather was released from Azkaban this week. The damn Wizengamot finally gave him a proper trial and realized he's been innocent all this time. He's at St. Mungo's recovering right now and I can go visit him if I can get an adult to escort me. I was going to ask my dad's other best friend, Remus Lupin to do it, but apparently he isn't available right now."

The three first years stared at Harry with very confused looks on their faces.

"Is it always going to be like this with you?" Ron asked with a smirk on his lips.

"Like what?" Harry asked, slightly taken aback.

"Completely confusing and downright shocking?" Ron said chuckling.

"Um... maybe?" Harry responded. The words actually came out more as a question than an answer and he actually felt his cheeks flush lightly with his own embarrassment. "Sorry all... I know I'm a bit mental sometimes. I don't even realize I'm doing it half the time."

"That's fine, Harry, really," Hermione said in a rather reassuring tone, although her face still shone her confusion and the slightest bit of concern. "Do you think you could explain that bit you said earlier about a godfather being released from prison, though?"

"Oh, sure," Harry said nodding. He then proceeded to explain to the them about the story of his father and his three best friends. How his parents had to go under the fidelus charm to hide from Voldemort and his death eaters, and how Sirius Black was supposed to be the Secret Keeper. He explained how, at the last minute, Sirius suggested that he be a decoy, and that Harry's parents should secretly switch to Peter instead.

He told them how Peter had actually been a death eater, and had sold out Harry's parents the moment he was in control of the secret.

"So as soon as Sirius realized what had happened, he went after Peter. Peter faked his death in a crowded street, surrounded by muggles. He made it look like Sirius was the traitor, and that he had blew up the street, muggles, and Peter with it. But in reality, Peter escaped and went into hiding. The aurors showed up and carted Sirius straight to Azkaban without ever even giving him a trial," Harry said.

"That's awful!" Hermione exclaimed, causing several people to stare at the group for a moment.

"I found out where Peter was hiding and told Dumbledore. That's the primary reason that I went to the Headmaster's office the night of the feast," Harry explained.

"So he went and got him and took him to the Ministry?" Neville asked.

Harry shrugged and made an affirmative-type noise. "Basically. They questioned Peter under Veritiserum on Wednesday, and brought Sirius in for additional question under the truth serum on Thursday. Now he's officially exonerated and resting in St. Mungos," Harry finished with a beaming smile.

"That's brilliant! So now you have your godfather back?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, and I can go visit him as soon as I can find an adult to take me. The headmaster won't let me leave the school without a babysitter," Harry said, rolling his eyes.

"And that's why you were going to write to this Lupin person," Hermione asked to clarify.

"Yup. But he won't be able to make it quick enough, so I've got to find someone else."

"How do you know? You... oh... right. You had a vision or something?" Ron asked.

Harry twisted up his mouth as he thought for a moment. "I wouldn't exactly call it a vision, or even a premonition, just sort of an _intuition._"

"Huh?" Ron said.

"Well, it's really rare for me to get a legitimate 'vision' when I'm awake. If I intentionally focus on something specific that I want to perceive I can get a vague premonition when I'm awake, but a lot of the time I'll just sort of get an instant _gut feeling_ that kind of updates me on some little detail. The moment I dedicated myself to writing to Lupin, and put the quill to parchment I got one of those."

"And that gut feeling told you that Mr. Lupin wouldn't respond for more than a week." Hermione stated.

"Right," Harry confirmed with a sigh. "Which means I need to come up with someone else."

"Any ideas who you'll ask?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged. "I suppose I can try McGonagall. I know that Dumbledore won't take me. Uh... one of those gut feelings," Harry quickly added in response to their questioning looks, "but there's a chance that McGonagall will do it."

Ron shuddered and shook his head. "Uhgh... she scares me. If looks could kill, McGonagall would be dropping people left and right. I've never seen anyone with such a fierce glare... well, okay, that's not entirely true. I guess Snape has her beat in that department."

Harry chuckled. "She's not so bad once you get under the icy exterior."

Ron gave Harry a disbelieving, incredulous look. "I'll believe it if I ever see it."

– – –

Harry woke up with the sun and went through his morning routine. He collected Addy from inside his trunk and left Gryffindor tower for his jog around the lake, and morning exercises.

A little over an hour later he climbed back through the portrait hole and into the common room. Much to Harry's surprise, there was actually someone there.

"You're up awfully early," Harry commented as he walked past Hermione, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor not far from the fireplace and surrounded by books.

Hermione jumped and actually shrieked lightly in surprise. "Harry! You scared me! What on earth are you doing up so early?"

"I believe I asked you that first," Harry said smirking.

"I just wanted to catch up on some reading and all of the girls in my dorm are still sleeping. I didn't want to disturb any of them. How about you?"

Harry shrugged. "I've been up for a bit over an hour and a half, actually. Just got back from my morning run and doing my katas."

"Morning run?"

"Yeah, I go for a jog every morning around the lake."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "_Around_ the lake? The _whole lake?"_

"Yeah? Why?"

"Harry, that lake is enormous! It's got to be more than 10 miles all the way around."

"I think it's closer to twelve. Not positive though," Harry said with a shrug.

"You run twelve miles every morning before classes?"

"Yeah. Been running for years. Slowly worked my way up to around ten miles back in Little Whinging. It's a little farther to run around the lake now, but not by too much. Anyway, I figured out ages ago that staying in top physical shape can play a huge role in my magical power level."

"What? Really? I've never read that anywhere. Where did you hear that?" Hermione asked, sitting up straighter and giving him her full attention.

"I don't know why exactly... I mean, obviously being in good shape will help in a duel. Improves your ability to dodge, and increases your endurance and stamina for really long battles. But I think being in good shape improves the connection to your core, or something.

"It's really unfortunate that more wizards don't realize it. I mean, they totally let themselves go. Magic makes it so that it's not necessary for magic folk to really exert themselves physically, so they just get apathetic about it."

"But how can you be sure that being physically fit improves magic?" Hermione asked.

"I... I don't know how I know, I guess. I just _do._ Plus, I've seen from my visions that it's true. After I started to really dedicate myself to staying in top physical form, my visions of my future power level rose dramatically, as well as my control over my magic. I suppose it could have been influenced by several other factors as well... I mean, as a part of the whole 'getting fit' thing, I started doing karate, and I'm sure that the whole discipline, meditation, and focus thing probably helped with my magic too..."

Harry paused and twisted up his face while looking thoughtful for a moment before he shrugged and refocused on Hermione. "I don't know, I guess. I think that it's a whole bunch of factors that all work together. But I know it makes a difference. It's improved my concentration and memory too, which helps to make sorting my visions easier. I just think clearer after my morning run."

"Hmmm..." Hermione hummed, looking thoughtful.

"Hmm, what?" Harry asked, looking rather perplexed.

"Maybe I'll join you," she said with a determined nod.

"Huh? Join me?"

"Maybe I'll start jogging with you. In the mornings I mean."

"I'm not really sure you'll be able to keep up," Harry said slowly and hesitantly.

Hermione huffed and folded her arms across her chest. "I'm perfectly capable of jogging."

"Hermione, I've been doing this for years... I don't exactly go slowly. I'm sure you could run each morning, but I doubt you could go as far, or as fast as I can."

"Well, then I won't try to keep up with you right away, but that doesn't mean I can't try and do some morning jogging. It sounds like a really brilliant idea. Honestly, I'm rather surprised that there aren't any kind of physical fitness classes here at Hogwarts."

"Yeah, it really would be a good idea. But like I said, wizards seem to have the idea that it's just not important."

"Well, I think you're right and I want to give it a shot too," Hermione said with a determined nod.

Harry scratched the top of his head and looked out the window as he began making mental plans. "Ooh-kay," he began slowly, "Well, we could probably do laps around the quidditch pitch, instead of the lake. That way you can do fewer laps than me, without getting totally left behind. I think maybe you should just try it three times a week to start and work your way up to every day. I'm up by 6am everyday, so any days you want to join me, just make sure you're in the common room by 6:15 and you can join me. Sound okay?"

"Sounds good," Hermione said with a bright smile.

Harry smiled back and chuckled. This was unexpected, and yet not at all unwelcome.

– – –

A few hours later Harry found himself walking through the halls of Hogwarts alone. He had eaten an early breakfast with Hermione before the two of them went back to the Gryffindor common room to finish up a few assignments while the majority of the inhabitants of Gryffindor tower slept in.

Now Hermione was making her way to the library, and Harry was walking towards the second floor with the intention of tracking down McGonagall and seeing if she would be willing to accompany him to St. Mungo's. His gut was telling him that she _wouldn't_, but at the same time, he wasn't willing to go without at least asking.

He turned a corner and saw another person walking down the hall in his direction. It was a female student with pale skin, a heart-shaped face, and very short, spikey, violet-colored hair. She was wearing Hufflepuff robes, and strolling rather casually through the corridors.

Harry paused in his walk and cocked his head to the side slightly before grinning widely and resuming his walking, only now with more determination, and heading directly for the girl.

"Wotcher, Tonks!" Harry said with a wide smile as he came to stand in front of the confused-looking 7th year.

"Do I know you?" she asked as she came to a sudden stop in front of the tiny black-haired 1st year.

"Not yet," Harry said with a shrug.

_'Tonks'_ arched a single inquisitive eyebrow at the small boy and looked him over. Her eyes traveled up and landed on his forehead.

"Wait a minute. You're Harry Potter, aren't 'cha?" she asked and Harry quickly nodded, still grinning. "What do you want with me? And how'd you know my name?"

"I'm kind of a seer. I've always had this weird ability to just _know_ things. I also have visions of possible future events."

Tonks' jaw dropped and she looked down at the small boy, still wondering what on earth he was doing talking to her. "What does this have to do with me?"

"Next year you're going to go into the auror training program and you'll be trained by Alister Moody, himself. In some of my visions of the future, you were actually assigned to guard me during my summer hols, but I don't think it'll be necessary anymore. I've already changed the set of events that would have led to that future."

"What on earth are you on about!"

Harry just chuckled. "Never mind. Actually I have a favor to ask of you,"

"A favor? What do you want?" she asked, cautiously as she looked down at Harry through narrowed eyes.

–

"Okay, let me get this straight," Tonks said as she pushed herself up off the wall she'd been leaning against, "my mum's cousin, Sirius Black is actually_innocent_. You got him freed and cleared this week, and now he's at St. Mungo's recovering from spending the last _decade_ at Azkaban. He's actually your godfather, and is supposed to be your legal guardian, so the headmaster said you could go to hospital to visit him as long as you got someone who could take you, and you want _me_ to do it?"

"Yup, in a nutshell," Harry said, nodding his head.

"But it sounds like the headmaster wants an _adult_ to take you."

"You're of age. 17 years old makes you an adult."

"Yeah, but I doubt that the headmaster had a 7th year in mind when he made that little stipulation about your travel arrangements," she said, giving Harry a skeptical look.

"It'll work. I just know it will," Harry insisted, smiling.

"This one of those seer things?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Harry just shrugged and nodded sheepishly.

Tonks sighed and threw her hands up. "Yeah, well, okay, sure. Why the hell not? I gotta admit, I'm curious. And it's only the first weekend. I can blow a few hours before heading back to the common room and getting started on a couple papers."

Harry beamed at her excitedly. "So you'll do it! Brilliant!" he pumped his fist into the air and did a little jump. His antics made Tonks laugh and shake her head at him. "Can we go now?" Harry asked, refocusing on her.

She shrugged. "Sure, why not? Where do we go?"

"The headmaster's office. He said he'd be in there all day and that I could drop by any time and use his floo."

"Alright then, let's do this."

– – –

"You want to see _who!_" the young witch at the front desk of St. Mungo's asked as her head popped up and she looked at the young boy who was standing before her, flanked by an older girl with spiky purple hair.

"Sirius Black. He was released from Azkaban this week after it was determined he was innocent and wrongly incarcerated. He's supposed to be here recovering. I was told I could come visit him," Harry said, with a rather impatient and frustrated look about him.

The witch's jaw hung open for a moment before she seemed to recover and flicked her wand at the large book on the desk in front of her. It opened up and the pages flipped ahead quickly for a moment before finally settling on a page.

"Ah, here it is. He's on the sixth floor. Head on up and speak to the healer there. They'll be able to direct you further."

"Thanks," Harry called over his shoulder as he dragged Tonks towards the lifts.

– –

"I'm sorry, but only family members are allowed to visit patients," the wizard on the 6th floor said to the pair in a monotone voice as he sat behind a desk, reading the Daily Prophet. The man hadn't even bothered to look up at Harry and Tonks yet.

"We _are_ family. Sirius Black is my legal guardian, and Tonks here is his cousin. So _let, us, in._" Harry insisted rather impatiently.

The man looked up finally and eyed the two people with narrow eyes. "What'd you say your name was?"

Harry huffed. "Harry Potter."

The man's eyes widened and his jaw dropped slightly.

"Can I please go visit my godfather now?" Harry asked with obvious irritation in his voice.

"Uh... sure. Um, just sign in here," the man said, motioning towards a large book that lay open on the desk in front of him.

Harry quickly grabbed the quill from the desk and scrawled his name in the book. Tonks followed behind him a moment later, and then the two were heading down the hallway towards room 7.

Harry came to a stop before the closed door and pulled in a deep breath before slowly letting it out. His heart was racing with both anticipation and anxiety. He was _finally_ going to meet Sirius.

"You okay kid?" Tonks asked from behind Harry.

He turned over his shoulder and smiled softly at her. "Yup. Thanks for asking. And thanks again for agreeing to come with me. I can't tell you how much Iappreciate it."

"Don't sweat it, kid. Come on. Lets go meet the ex-convict," she said, nodding her head towards the door and smirking.

Harry turned around and knocked lightly on the door before pushing it open a few inches. He peered through the crack and saw a figure resting on a bed, laying on his side and facing away from the door.

There was no response, but Harry pushed the door open and slowly stepped inside anyway. Tonks followed and softly closed the door behind them.

Harry walked over and stood beside the bed and fidgeted for a moment.

"Um, hello? Mr. Black?" he began hesitantly. The figure's chest rose with more force for a moment but he made no other sign of response. "I was hoping to talk with you, I hope I'm not causing you any trouble," Harry continued slowly.

"Is he sleeping?" Tonks whispered from a few feet away.

Harry looked back at her and shook his head. Sirius appeared to be asleep, but Harry knew he wasn't.

"I've been looking forward to getting a chance to see you again for so long," Harry whispered, turning back to the man in the bed. "I'm Harry, by the way. Harry Potter."

The figure jerked and then froze. Even his breathing seemed to have stopped for a moment. The man in the bed shifted finally, turning so that he was now laying on his back as he turned his head towards Harry and slowly opened his dark, sunken eyes.

"Harry?" he rasped.

Harry nodded his head and gave his estranged godfather a hopeful smile. "That's right, Sirius. I'm Harry."

Sirius blinked and stared at the young boy who so very much resembled his father at his age. "It really is you," he whispered. His mouth floundered for a moment as if he simply could not find the right words to say. "Why on earth would you say that you've been _looking forward_to seeing me? I'm the man that supposedly betrayed your parents."

"I've always known you were innocent, Sirius. I've _always_ known. I'm so sorry that I couldn't get you out of there sooner. I wanted to try so many times, but I saw that none of them would work. If I'd contacted Dumbledore, or the Aurors and given them a tip on where to find Wormtail, they would have botched it. None of them would have taken me seriously enough, and he would have gotten away.

"The only way to guarantee that it would work is if I caught him myself, and I didn't have a chance to do that till last weekend. I'm so sorry. I should have been able to find a way to get you out sooner. I'm so sorry."

"Wait, what? Harry... what...?" Sirius said, as he tried to shift himself into a sitting position, but didn't seem to have the strength to do it.

Harry put his hand on Sirius's chest and stopped his godfather's attempts. He quickly began to explain things to the stunned man. He gave him a basic rundown of his seer's sight, and told him about how Wormtail was playing the role of 'pet' to the Weasley's middle son, until this year when he was given to Ron as a gift.

"You stunned him?" Sirius asked in shocked surprise.

Harry nodded and grinned sheepishly. "He was already asleep. The only thing I really had to worry about was waking up Ron or my other dorm mates. Fortunately they were all pretty spent form the train ride, the sorting, and over-eating at the feast."

"And you snuck out and went to the headmaster's office?" Sirius continued, chuckling. "Fantastic. I wish I could have seen the old man's face when you showed up in his office at midnight."

Harry grinned and shrugged. "I think he was even more stunned when I tossed an unconscious rat onto his desk."

Tonks's eyes grew wide and she gaped at him. "You tossed the rat onto _his desk_? Was he sitting at it, at the time?"

Harry grinned shyly and nodded.

"Un-bloody-believable," she said, shaking her head.

Sirius turned his attention onto Tonks and grinned. "So you're Andromeda's girl, eh? I remember when you were born. You were changing your hair color from day-one. You're parents were so shocked and impressed. There aren't any metamorphs in the Black family as far back as I know, and with your dad being muggleborn no one ever saw it coming."

Sirius chatted with Tonks for a few minutes about what her mum and dad had been up to during the last few years while Harry sat back and just observed.

There was no question that Sirius looked better than he had in some of Harry's first visions of the man. The first time that Harry had ever seen anything of his godfather in a vision, it was of the two of them meeting in Harry's third year. In that original potential timeline, the only reason Sirius got out of Azkaban was because he _escaped._

Now, the real Sirius was resting comfortably in a hospital bed. He'd been in Azkaban for 10 years, instead of 12; hadn't had to _swim_ through the freezing ocean as a dog, and hadn't been forced to be on the run and hiding out for months on end.

But despite the better circumstances, Sirius still looked pretty rotten. He was incredibly thin, and his skin was sunken and sallow. His hair had been cleaned, but it was still rather long and tangled. His eyes were surrounded by dark rings and heavy bags, and they had a rather flat, hallow look to them.

However, the more that Harry and Tonks spoke to him, the more the light slowly seemed to be returning to his eyes. Even during the seemingly short time since Harry and Tonks had arrived, the improvement in Sirius's demeanor and appearance was obvious.

Harry even saw a few genuine smiles grace Sirius's face.

"This is just so surreal," Sirius mused quietly after silence fell over the group for a few moments.

Harry refocused on his godfather with a questioning gaze.

Sirius chuckled weakly and shook his head. "I keep waiting to wake up. That, or I think that the dementors finally drove me mad and I lost my mind. If this is insanity, I wish I'd let them drive me mental sooner."

"You're not crazy, Sirius. This is really real," Harry said.

"I sure hope so," Sirius said with a slight smile and a chuckle.

They were quiet again for another minute before Harry decided to speak. "Hey Sirius?"

"Yeah, kid?"

"Have the medi-witches told you how long till they let you out of here?"

"Nothing definite, but they said that it'd be at least two to three weeks before their nutritional potions have me sufficiently stabilized or something."

"Where are you planning to go once they discharge you?"

Sirius heaved a heavy sigh and actually shrugged a bit. "I... I suppose I could go back to my families old house." Sirius seemed to be grimacing at the thought.

"Grimmauld Place? Uck. No way! That place isn't livable."

Sirius stared blankly at Harry for a moment before shaking his head and laughing. "You're a real trip, kid. It's really crazy that you just seem to _know_these things."

Harry just shrugged and grinned. "Since Grimmauld place is definitely out of the question, my vote would be the Woolacombe beach house. You know, the one along the coast of North Devon where Dad took you your summers between third, forth, and filth year?"

Sirius looked startled for a second before chuckling again. "Definitely a trip. So are you telling me that you've had visions about your dad and me from back in our school days? That's just incredible! Gosh... I remember that beach house. Your dad and I had some great times there. Brought Remus with us a few times too..."

"But never the rat," Harry said.

Sirius nodded. "No, Peter never came with us. He knew about the house, but he never knew exactly where it was."

"Wouldn't matter anyway, even if he had. I'm going to contact the goblins and have them do a full work up of wards on the property. I mean, I know we could just crash at the old Potter manor, but the property is much larger, and older, and it would take more work to try and make it unplottable. It's got all sorts of old outdated and weakend wards that would have to be dismantled before any new ones could be constructed. The Woolacombe beach house is practically wardless right now, so the goblins can start from the ground up without having to work around any old magic."

"Wait, Harry – what are you on about?" Sirius asked, holding up his hand to slow Harry down.

"I want you to move into the beach house and get it livable, and come summer, I'm going to join you... if that's alright, at least," Harry said, adding the last bit in a rush and suddenly looking at his hands.

"You really want to come live with me?" Sirius asked with hushed surprise.

"More than anything. Do you know who I've been stuck with for the last ten years?"

Sirius pulled together his brows and frowned for a moment. "No, who?"

"Mum's sister and her rotten husband and spoiled whale of a son."

"Petunia! How the bloody hell did you end up with Petunia!"

"Dumbledore stuck me there. Speaking of which, we're going to have to keep this quiet. Dumbledore is probably going to fight it, but if we're sneaky about it, we can get all of the legal stuff done under his nose, before he notices."

"Wait, wait, Harry... what... I... huh?" Sirius spluttered, looking completely lost. Tonks looked equally confused, but just sat back and watched the interactions trying to make sense of it all.

"Dumbledore cast these old blood wards on my _'families'_ home that protect me by tapping into my mom's protection. They only work if I'm living with a blood relative, which is why he stuck me with my Aunt. He wants me to _keep staying with them_, because the blood wards protect me from any wizards who try to enter the property. What Dumbledore fails to realize is that while the wards protect me from wizards, they do _not_protect me from the Dursley's, and honestly, I'm more worried about them, then Deatheaters right now.

"You're completely innocent and legally exonerated. You were named as my godfather in my parent's will and have every legal right to claim guardianship over me. My parent's will actually specifically said that I was _not_ to end up with the Dursley's, but Dumbledore still managed to stick me with them."

Sirius's face was getting redder and it was obvious from his expression that he was getting more and more upset by the second.

"I can't entirely blame Dumbledore though because if he hadn't stepped in, the Ministry would have tried to get custody of me, and I hate to think of who _they_ would have placed me with. Just the same, I have no intention of going back to the Dursley's house at the end of the school year. If you can't take me in, then I'm going to start work on getting emancipated, but it'd be a lot easier to just get guardianship transferred to you."

"Don't be silly, Harry! Of course I want you! This is just so sudden, it's hard to take it all in."

"Do you need some time to think about it?" Harry asked, hesitantly.

"No, of course not. There's no question that I'll take you in. I'd love to. Nothing would make me happier."

Harry's smile grew wider and wider until he was literally beaming at his godfather. Sirius couldn't help but beam right back in response to the ecstatic look on his godson's face.

Sirius chuckled and shook his head. "Alright. So let me see if I'm getting this all straight... as soon as I can manage, I'll start looking into what steps I need to take to claim guardianship over you, right?"

"Yup," Harry confirmed with a nod.

"And you're going to contact the goblins about getting the beach house set up with new wards?"

"Yes. I plan to go all out. The only way Dumbledore will really accept me moving in there is if it's got the most powerful wards a person can buy."

"That's going to be rather expensive. Don't even think about dipping into your school trust fund for the warding costs. I can cover it," Sirius said.

"You don't have to worry about it. I wouldn't have to touch the trust vault for it, no matter what. The money for it could come straight out of the family vault. And until you get legal custody of me, I don't think that I can involve you in the warding of a property owned by the Potters. I want to get them started as soon as possible so you can move in once you're discharged.

"Anyway, when I order the warding, I'm going to make sure that all of the protections the goblins put up are compatible with the Fidelus since we'll probably be throwing that one up at the end, after everything else is completed."

"The Fidelus? You do realize that the goblins can't do that one for you, right? The owner of the property has to cast it, and they need to have someone that they have absolute trust in, to act as the secret keeper. _James_ had a hell of a hard time casting that spell, and seeing as how _you're_ now the legal owner of the property, and you're an eleven year old first year, I sort of doubt that you'll be able to cast the spell."

"I've... well, let's just say that I've got a plan for that. I'm going to practice over the Christmas hols, and then do the actual casting during Easter break," Harry said with a confident nod. "And for the secret keeper – well, that's _you_, obviously. So there's no problem there."

Sirius's jaw dropped open slightly and he rose a single doubtful eyebrow at the boy. However Harry seemed entirely convinced of his own words so Sirius just shrugged and chuckled.

The three talked for another half hour before a medi-witch came in and told Harry and Tonks that they needed to leave and let Sirius get some more rest.

They bid Sirius farewell, and he gave Harry a warm, comforting hug before he left. The feeling was such a strange and foreign one for Harry, and yet it was also extremely welcome. He had only ever experienced physical comfort in his visions, and it was a feeling he had long yearned to experience in the real, waking world.

As Tonks and Harry made their way towards the floo in the hospital's lobby, she offered to bring Harry back the following weekend. Harry thanked her for the offer, and said he might take her up on the offer, but that he was planning to invite one of Sirius's old friends and was hoping that he would be able to make the trip.

The pair made their way through the floo and into the headmaster's office. He greeted the pair of them and Harry thanked him again for allowing them to go and thanked Tonks one more time for the escort before leaving and making his way to the Gryffindor common room.


	11. Book 1: Routine

__**Chapter 10: Routine**

_Dear Ginny Weasley_

_Hey! This is Harry. Remember me from the train station? I told you I'd write! I bet you thought I'd forget, didn't you? Well, I didn't!_

_I've had a fantastic, and incredibly eventful first week. I got sorted into Gryffindor and I'm dorm mates with your brother Ron. He and I sat together on the Hogwarts Express and have become fast friends with two other Gryffindors named Hermione Granger and Nevile Longbottom._

_I have a bit of a confession to make. I'm a seer. I have visions of my own future. I've had them for as long as I can remember, so I've been 'seeing' my time at Hogwarts for years. What this basically means is that I've been having visions of being friends with your brothers, and yourself, for years now._

_I know it's really weird, and it's a hard concept to wrap your mind around, but I swear it's true._

_You and I wouldn't have become friends until after you'd actually gotten to Hogwarts, but I saw how sad you were at being left behind and I wanted to try and find a way to cheer you up. That's why I offered to write to you for the school year._

_I know I come off as a bit mental sometimes, so if you decide you don't want to be quill pals, I'll understand. No hard feelings._

_Anyway, my classes were really interesting. We've already got homework in almost every one of them, and Ron can't stop complaining about it. It's honestly kind of funny to see him whining so much. Hermione just finds it annoying though._

_I was actually raised by muggles, even though my parents were magical, (they were killed when I was a baby) so I've been going to muggle school since I was five. Hermione is muggle-born too, so she and I are both really familiar with the concept of homework. Ron, on the other hand is really struggling. It's really obvious that Ron's only been home-schooled his whole life. The idea of homework is such a foreign concept to him. Haha._

_I may be familiar with the idea of writing essays, but that doesn't mean I enjoy it much. I'm way more fond of the practical exercises that we actually do in class. We haven't done much practical work in Charms yet, which is kind of a bummer. Transfiguration has been pretty interesting so far. The teacher is Professor McGonagall, and she's a cat Animagus. It's really cool to see her transform._

_I'm really eager to learn Potions, but the professor for that class is a bit difficult for most to handle. He's pretty intimidating, and he's got a bit of a grudge against me. He and my parents went to school together in the same year, and while Professor Snape was good friends with my mum, he and my dad were always at each other's throats. I guess it was sort of a rivalry for my mum's affections, and since my dad won in the end, Professor Snape is a bit... bitter. Don't ever let him know I said that. He'd eviscerate me, if he knew!_

_Next week we start our flying lessons and I'm really looking forward to that. I've been looking forward to actually trying out a broom for years. I've had visions where I was flying and the feeling was beyond exhilarating, so I can't wait!_

_Anyway, this letter is already getting pretty long, so I'll call it quits here. If you aren't too scared off by the whole me being kind of psychic thing and still want to keep chatting, then great! If not, don't worry about it._

_Sincerely,_

_Harry Potter_

– –

"Who's the letter for, mate?" Ron asked as Harry began stuffing the folded parchment into an envelope.

"Your sister," Harry said as he began walking over to the window.

"What!" Ron exclaimed.

Harry opened the window near his bed in the Gryffindor tower, stuck two of his fingers into his mouth and let loose a high pitched, shrill whistle that made Ron cringe.

"When I saw her on the platform at Kings Cross Station, I offered to write her as quill pals," Harry said as he stared into the inky darkness beyond the window.

"What in Merlin's beard for!"

"She looked sad. She's going to be lonely this year, being the only one left at home. I thought it would help cheer her up if she had someone else to write to during the school year."

Out of the inky darkness a white spec slowly became visible and grew larger.

"But what do you care if Ginny is sad?" Ron asked, looking entirely beyond confused.

"Once she gets here, next year, she's going to be one of my friends too," Harry said as a large snowy owl swooped in through the window and landed on Harry's outstretched arm.

"But she's – Whoa! Awesome owl!"

Harry chuckled as he reached up and pet the owl's head gently. "Her name is Hedwig. She's a real beauty isn't she?"

"Yeah... I didn't know you had an owl... anyway, I still don't get why you would want to write a letter to my little sister."

"Ron, in what way does her being your little sister make her _less_ worthy of being my friend? I'm going to be friends with Fred and George too, and they're your brothers."

"I... well, she... I don't know..." Ron spluttered. "It's still kind of weird that you're writing a letter to my little sister."

Harry just shrugged and grinned. "She's going to be absolutely wicked in Defense when she's older. She's also going to make an awesome chaser on the Gryffindor team in her 4th year."

Ron perked up instantly. "She's going to make the house team?"

"Yup," Harry said as Hedwig hopped off his shoulder and landed on the ledge in front of the window. Harry began to attach the letter to her leg with a string.

Ron fidgeted for a moment before finally exploding, "What about me? Do I ever make it?"

"You mean on the team? Yes, Ron, you do – or at least in just about every variation on the future I've seen, you do, so it seems like a pretty sure bet. You take over as Keeper the year after Oliver graduates."

"Keeper! Wicked!" Ron said, pumping his fist in the air.

"Hey Hedwig, could you deliver this letter to Ginny Weasley at the Burrow, for me?" Harry said in a quiet, warm voice to his snowy owl. She hooted and nipped playfully at his hand. "Great. Thanks girl," Harry said as he handed her an owl treat.

She ate it quickly before flying back out the window and disappearing into the nights sky.

Harry went back to his desk and grabbed another piece of parchment and his quill.

"What are you up to now?" Ron asked, leaning over Harry's shoulder.

"Writing another letter," Harry murmured as he began to write.

"Another one? Who's this one to?"

"Ron, don't you think you're being a bit nosy?" Nevile called out from his bed across the room where he was currently reading a book while laying propped up by a mass of pillows.

"What? I'm just curious?" Ron said defensively.

"It's alright," Harry said, "I'm writing a letter to Remus Lupin. I'm hoping that he can come with me to St. Mungo's next weekend to visit Sirius."

Ron shook his head. "It is down-right mind numbing how much stuff you have going on all at once. I can barely keep track of all the homework I've got to do, and here you are with the same amount of work, and all of this other crazy stuff piled on top of it."

"It's not so bad. Plus it'll calm down in a couple weeks and I'll get into a nice routine. Things are just extra crazy right now because it's the start of the school year."

After a few more minutes of chatting, Ron finally made his way over to his own bed and let Harry finish his letter to Remus in peace. After that he pulled out another piece of parchment and began a letter to the goblins of Gringott's to request a goblin be sent out to his family's beach house to survey the property and provide him with a few estimates for warding the place.

Harry decided that he'd wait till morning to send out these two letters, and finally made his own way to bed.

– – –

Monday morning Hermione joined Harry for his morning exercises. Her stamina was obviously much lower than his was, and she ended up sitting down, puffing and breathless long before Harry stopped lapping the Quidditch pitch.

She watched him performing his katas with awe in her eyes. There was a surprising amount of force in each thrust of his hands into the air. The perfectly scripted movements that he had obviously performed many many times, repeatedly over the years. The exact way he placed his feet and shifted his weight from one pose or maneuver to the next. It was obvious to Hermione that Harry had been working at this for a long time.

As she watched him perform the exercise Hermione began to notice a tingle in the air. She could feel the hairs on her arms standing on end and goose flesh dotted her skin.

Harry thrust his hand forward with his palm facing forward, in her direction, and she felt the air push towards her. It was as if his punch had created wind!

"Harry, that's incredible! Are you combining your magic in with your karate exercises?" she exclaimed.

"Huh, what?" Harry asked as he paused in the middle of his exercise and shook his head to shift his focus on her.

"Your magic, Harry – you were putting some of it into your exercise! I could feel it. How were you doing that?"

"I was?" Harry blinked.

"Yes, I could feel the magical energy in the air, and when you punched forward a moment ago, it actually pushed the air towards me like wind. It was really impressive."

"Oh... I guess I did. I wasn't really paying attention to that. I sort of let my mind get absorbed into the movements when I'm doing my katas."

"I could see that. It was really quite beautiful actually. It's like a really ridgid, structured, dance. But it's also quite fluid and graceful too."

Harry flushed lightly at her praise and grinned shyly. "Thanks."

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Um... I know that you were taking lessons for years and all, but do you think you could teach me any of that?"

"You want to learn karate?" Harry asked, surprised. _Hermione wants to learn to fight?_

"Yeah, I think that it might help me improve the power of my magic. You seem to be so in tune with your magic, it's just incredible to watch. It's like you're one with it, without even trying."

Harry's mouth floundered for a moment. He really had no idea how to respond to her observation so he just shrugged.

"Um... okay. Yeah, I could try and show you some things. Probably not today though. We both need to head back to the tower and get cleaned up and ready for breakfast."

"Of course. Whenever is fine with me."

"Okay. Well, we can start with something tomorrow, if you'd like."

"That's be brilliant, Harry. Thank you!"

"Uhm, sure. No problem," Harry concluded with a shy grin.

– – –

Classes progressed in much the same way that they had the previous week. Harry was really beginning to get the hang of doing magic through his wand, and it was taking fewer and fewer attempts for him to succeed during the practical portions of his classes.

Where the rest of the class would practice again and again for the entire practice period and be lucky to get even partial results, Harry was able to successfully perform every spell within four or five attempts at the most.

Hermione seemed frustrated a bit in their charms lesson on Tuesday. She was able to correctly answer every question that Professor Flitwick asked about the theory of the spell they were learning, but seemed to be having trouble at actually _performing_ the spell.

The fact that Harry seemed to just _get it_ so easily was clearly a bit frustrating to her. Once Professor Flitwick was done exclaiming how impressed he was at Mr. Potter's success, Harry turned and watched as Hermione scowled lightly and continued to attempt the spell.

After a few more frustrated attempts Harry tried explaining a few key parts to her and she snapped at him, insisting that she understood the theory perfectly well.

Harry just sat and waited patiently for her fire to die down. She huffed and then sighed before turning to Harry with an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, Harry. I'm just frustrated. I didn't mean to blow up at you. You were just trying to help," she mumbled, while looking down at her lap.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm stealing your thunder."

She looked at him curiously. "Stealing my thunder? What on earth are you talking about?"

Harry shrugged. "Originally, you would have been the one at the top of all of our classes."

"What?" Hermione said, looking entirely confused.

"Well..." Harry hesitated and leaned in closer and spoke to her in a quiet voice so that no one would overhear them, "okay, so you know how my visions change over time as the future changes?"

"Yes?"

"Well, I first started having visions about my time at Hogwarts when I was four years old. The very first visions I had of my first year at Hogwarts were very very different than how things are actually playing out now. I made a lot of changes in my life over the years to avoid a lot of problems, and to try and become stronger and better. So the first time I saw myself at Hogwarts, I was a very different person.

"It was before I decided to make the Dursley's treat me better, so _that_ me would have been a lot more... um, well, beaten down by them. I never would have excelled at any schooling, and wouldn't have had any experience with magic at all. My first and only friend would have been Ron, and you've already seen how he is with his school work and homework. With him being my only friend, my performance in classes really wouldn't have been much better.

"In my old visions, not only were you the person answering all the questions right, but you were also the first one to get any of the spells to work. Sure, it would take you till the end of class, but you were still the first to get it."

"Harry," Hermione said, cutting him off, "I don't see what this has to do with anything."

"I'm just saying that if it weren't for all my crazy preparation and my visions, I wouldn't be doing nearly as well as I am. _You_ would be the one getting it to work first. I know that from your time at muggle school, that you're used to being at the top of the class. I don't want you to feel inferior just because you can't get it as fast as me. I've got some really unfair advantages. You're still doing a brilliant job! Don't get discouraged or frustrated just because you can't get it on your third try, alright? I mean, I'm a real freak for being able to do this stuff as fast as I am."

Hermione's mouth hung open as if she were about to say something, but she closed it, and gave him a soft smile while shaking her head. "You're really ridiculous, Harry Potter. But thanks for caring."


	12. Book 1:Faster than you can say Quidditch

**Chapter 11: Faster than you can say Quidditch**

Wednesday was the third day that Hermione joined Harry for his morning jog. While running, Harry let Addy lay around the back of his neck and rest her head on his shoulder. If she tucked her head and the bottom of her tail into the collar of his shirt, she could almost pass for a thick necklace or something, but Hermione could still see why they didn't use this arrangement often. It was much easier to hide Addy's presence when she was wrapped around his wrist, with the long concealing sleeves of his school robes.

Hermione found it quite curious how Harry seemed to carry on lengthy conversations with his snake while he ran. She actually found it quite unbelievable that he was capable of talking _at all_ with as hard as he was jogging. She could barely breath and she wasn't running nearly as fast as he was.

It was still quite unsettling to hear such strange noises coming from Harry's mouth when he spoke with his familiar. The very sound of it, coming through human vocal cords, was entirely unnerving, but when watching the expressions Harry made while speaking with Addy, Hermione realized that his speech was from from being as sinister as it sounded. He would smile and laugh. Sometimes it was obvious that he was teasing the snake, and other times it looked like he was being told off by her. One especially strange set of hissing sounds seemed to happen rather frequently, and Hermione finally realized that it was what it sounded like when Harry was laughing in parseltongue. Harry and Addy seemed to often be joking back and forth with each other, and having a full blown conversation.

Hermione never imagined that a person could carry on a conversation like that with an animal that wasn't even deemed 'magical'. Harry's snake was nothing more than a common European adder, although Harry _had_ said that with as much magic as he has focused through her over the last two years, that she was becoming quite magical In her own right. Hermione wasn't sure what exactly that meant, but she was definitely curious.

Harry had begun to show Hermione some beginner exercises that he had her practicing while he performed his katas. She practiced and tried to stay focused, but couldn't help but get distracted watching the impressive young boy a few feet away from her.

When he got lost in his exercises, Hermione could feel the strength of his magical aura filling the space around them. It was truly an impressive feeling to experience. She could only hope that with practice, she could call forth a power and focus like that some day.

– –

Thursday arrived and the four Gryffindors met up in the Great Hall for breakfast. A notice had been posted in the common room at the end of the previous week, informing them that this would be the day that they would get their first flying lesson, and the tension among the first years was almost tangible.

While Seamus and Ron were both extremely excited – both, having been on brooms a number of times before in their lives – Neville had not, and obviously neither had Hermione, and as such, they were both extraordinarily nervous. Harry, in contrast, was rather pensive. He wasn't sure exactly how this day would pan out, nor was he entirely sure how he _wanted_ it to pan out.

He had had a few different visions about this particular day, over the years. In one scenario, he knew it was possible that the events of this day could lead to him getting on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, in only his _first year._ That scenario, however, would also involve increasing the tension between he and Draco Malfoy – who he had managed to keep a rather wide berth from so far that year – and it would also involve Neville getting hurt.

There were other scenarios though, where the day was almost entirely uneventful. No one got hurt, and Harry did not gain his head of house's attention with his spontaneous show of natural skill on a broomstick.

Harry was entirely unsure which scenario he was rooting for. If he was being entirely honest with himself, he really did want to get on the Quidditch team. He had a lot of fond memories of playing Quidditch. Or... well, he had fond memories of visions of playing quidditch.

Harry shook his head and sighed. Hermione was reading passages aloud from Quidditch Through the Ages – a book that she had checked out from the library earlier that week in preparation for the days lesson.

Hermione's lecture was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the post. A barn owl brought a package for Neville from his gran. He quickly opened it and revealed a glass ball the size of a large marble that appeared to be filled with white smoke.

Neville was clearly excited by his unexpected gift and quickly explained to them that it was a rememberall. He began to explain how if you held it tightly and it glowed red, that meant that you had forgotten something. Of course, at that moment, the ball turned bright scarlet.

As Neville sat there, still holding the bright red ball and trying to remember what it was he had forgotten, Draco Malfoy walked past and snatched the object from his hand.

"Hey!" Neville yelped in surprise as he turned around and squealed at the sight of the platinum blond holding his rememberall, flanked by his two enormous bodyguards.

"Give that back!" Ron bellowed, as he stood to his feet. Harry groaned and let his head fall into his hand.

"What's going on here?" McGonagall's voice interrupted them all with her almost instantaneous appearance.

"Malfoy's got my Rememberall," Neville said quickly.

Draco sneered at him and quickly set the ball back down on the table. His eyes caught Harry's and they narrowed for the briefest of moments before he refocused on McGonagall. "Just looking," he said as he turned and walked away.

"Lousy git," Ron muttered after McGonagall had disappeared and as he sat back down to finish his breakfast.

"Why does Malfoy look at you like that?" Hermione asked, leaning in close to Harry.

"Hmm?" Harry said, looking up at her in surprise.

"He's always staring at you, but he almost never actually speaks to you. He and Ron have been bickering like mad in class, but you just stay quiet and Malfoy just sends you odd looks," Hermione explained. Ron and Neville were both listening rather intently now too.

Harry sighed and shrugged. "Well, I ran into him at Madam Malkin's when I went to Diagon Alley on my birthday. He knows about my seer's sight, and I may have told him a few things about old moldywort that got him thinking... but aside from that, I really don't know."

"What'd you tell him?" Ron asked.

"Just that Voldie's real name is Tom Riddle, and that he was a big fat hypocrite for spoutinhg 'pure-blood this, and pure-blood that' since his dad was actually a muggle. I didn't even mention to him that Voldie's not dead or that he'll be coming back some day. Didn't think that would be the best idea since Draco's dad is still loyal to his old master. Or at least, he's still afraid of him," Harry said with a smirk.

"Huh?" Hermione asked, looking confused by that last part.

"Oh, Lucius Malfoy – Draco's dad – was a deatheater. But he managed to avoid getting sent off to Azkaban by bribing a lot of politicians with a mountain of gold galleons and claiming to have been under the _imperius_ curse the whole time."

"You're kidding!" she hissed in anger.

"Oh yeah. The ministry of magic is about as corrupt as it gets. Anyone with enough money or a good 'old family' blood status, can get away with murder... _literally._"

"That's awful!"

"Remember, Sirius was carted off to Azkaban without even being questioned, let alone being given a proper trial. The whole Ministry is nothing more than a festering pile of hippogryph dung."

"Hey, my dad works for the Ministry," Ron said with a frown on his face.

"Yeah, but your dad is one of the very few exceptions. He's a good man, trying to do an honest job and actually _help_ people. It's also why your dad is always passed over for promotions and gets low pay. It's disgusting. The good people who actually give a crap get treated like crap, while arses like Draco's dad, have tea and biscuits with the Minster every Tuesday morning," Harry concluded, with a dramatic roll of his eyes.

"He doesn't really, does he?" Hermione whispered in horror after a quiet moment.

"Who doesn't really do what?" Harry asked, confused.

"Malfoy's dad. Does he really have tea with the Minister?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure. I hate to say it, but Corneleus Fudge is in Malfoy's back pocket. Malfoy practically owns the stupid git."

"Merlin, Harry! That's terrible."

"You don't know the half of it," Harry said with a sigh and went back to eating his breakfast.

– –

At 3:30 that afternoon the first year Gryffindors and the first year Slytherins gathered on a smooth grassy patch on the grounds for their first flying lesson of the year.

A collection of school brooms were lined out on the ground and once Madam Hooch arrived, she barked at all of the gathered first years to each stand beside a broom. Everyone lined up quickly, one student to a broom, and Harry made it a point to stand beside Neville. Madam Hooch told them to stick out their right hand over their broom and say 'Up'.

They all did as they were told and Harry's broom flew instantly into his hand. Hermione's rolled over once on the ground, while Neville's broom refused to move at all. Ron's broom was reluctant, but after a couple 'Up!'s from Ron, it was also up and in his hand. Harry turned to Neville attempting to give him some advice that might help. Eventually the broom started to wiggle and squirm on the ground before finally making the slow rise up and into Neville's hand.

Madam Hooch walked around the group giving the students instruction and tips until everyone else had managed to get their broom up into their hands as well. Next she showed them all how to mount their broom, and the proper grip to hold it.

Ron smirked and snickered as Hooch corrected Malfoy's grip, informing him that he'd been doing it wrong for years. Malfoy scowled angrily at Ron in response.

Next, the flying instructor told them that they would be kicking off the ground, hovering in the air, and then coming back down for a landing. As she readied her whistle Harry tried to provide some reassuring words to Neville, but the boy's nerves were so thick in the air, Harry could practically _feel_ it.

Hooch readied her whistle but the moment before she was able to actually blow it, Neville began to float up off the ground in a rather shaky, and clearly uncontrolled manor.

Harry groaned miserably as he watched his friend begin to panic as he floated into the air. Harry closed his eyes as he rose his hand to his brow and pinched the ridge of his nose. He'd seen this more than enough times in his visions and honestly had no desire to watch it again in real life.

He heard the frightened yells, the gasps, the thump and the crack, followed instantly by the pained moans of one, Neville Longbottom.

Harry sighed and opened his eyes to see his friend laying in a crumpled heap on the ground, and Madam Hooch standing over him, examining the damage.

Harry wondered absently if this might have been avoided if he had explicitly warned Neville of what might happen and had a pang of guilt for not having done more to prevent the accident.

As Madam Hooch assisted the injured boy to walk back towards the castle she told the remaining first years to keep their feet planted firmly on the ground and threatened expulsion for anyone stupid enough to get on their broom while she was gone.

_The teachers are always threatening us with expulsion, but no one ever gets expelled. Even when they honestly deserve it! It's such a stupid empty threat._Harry thought as he rolled his eyes at her retreating form.

A moment later Draco burst into laughter and he and the other Slytherins began to berate Neville, and any of the Gryffindors who dared to stand up for him. A moment later Harry saw Draco bending over and picking something up from the ground. It was Neville's rememberall.

_Well, moment of truth, Potter. Do you just play it out? You know you could just accio it away from him right now and never even bother with the broom chase... But then there's no Quidditch. Ugh... Damn it._

"Hand it over Draco," Harry said, taking a determined step forward.

Draco seemed to hesitate for the briefest of moments as his eyes connected with Harry's. The other Slytherins didn't seemed to pick up on the hesitation and began to snicker at Harry.

Draco seemed to pull out of his moment of musing as he realized that his fellow house mates were waiting for him to respond, and a certain type of response was clearly expected of him.

Draco turned back to Harry and sneered. "No... I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find. Perhaps up a tree?" he drawled as he hopped onto his broom and began to raise into the air.

"You're going to regret this in the end, Draco," Harry said with flat indifference.

The tone of Harry's voice actually caused Draco to flinch and shift unsteadily on his broom for a moment. He quickly recovered as his eyes darted to the group of Slytherins watching him with awe. He couldn't show any weakness in front of them, even if Harry's words unnerved him.

Harry shook his head and sighed. "Fine. I warned you. If you're not going to hand it over, then I guess I'm going to have to take it from you!" Harry yelled out as he mounted his broom and shot into the air like a rocket.

Hermione gasped and tried to yell after him, but he was already gone and out of earshot before the words could leave her mouth.

Draco's eyes widened in shock and just barely managed to pull his broom to the side and fly to his left, in time to dodge Harry.

Draco made a few loops and tried to push the broom to move, but no matter what he did, Harry caught up to him, and matched his movement's perfectly. Harry kept cutting him off, and it was all Draco could do just to hold onto his broom.

"Just hand it over, Draco!" Harry called one last time. "This is the last warning."

"I don't think so Potter! Here, if you want it so badly, catch it if you can!" Draco called as he threw the ball high into the air and streaked back towards the ground.

Harry took off after the rememberall with all the speed the old school broom could muster. He pulled up and took a sudden dive, shooting through the air and loosing himself for the briefest of moments in the exhilarating feeling of the wind whipping past his face.

He quickly refocused and zeroed in on the tiny ball as it fell to the ground. Harry caught up to it and managed to snatch it out of the air, just in time to pull his broom up and then coast gently to the ground.

He turned around to see the group of first years all staring at him in stunned awe and total silence for all of two seconds before the Gryffindors erupted into squeals and cheers. All of two more seconds later, they were silenced by the sight of Professor McGonagall charging out onto the grounds with a determined glare in her eyes.

Harry walked calmly over to the Gryffindors and handed the Rememberall to Ron. "Give this to Neville for me, will you?"

Ron just nodded dumbly. Apparently he was too stunned by what he had just witnessed and the imposing form of McGonagall stalking towards them to make a verbal response.

"Harry! Oh, _Merlin_ Harry, are you out of your mind!" Hermione hissed in panic as her eyes darted from him to the quickly approaching form of their head of house. "You'll be expelled!"

Harry just grinned. "No I won't. Don't worry. I'll see you guys at diner later. Go check on Neville in the Hospital wing for me, okay?"

Harry turned to face the piercing gaze of his professor and smiled at her. She halted in her walk and rose a single eyebrow at him. For the briefest of moments, Harry thought he saw the corner of her mouth twitch upwards, but it was gone as soon as it appeared.

"Come with me, Mr. Potter," she said as she turned around and began to briskly walk back to the castle. Harry quickly followed, leaving the stunned first years behind.

– – – –

"This is unbelievable! You must be the youn–"

"Youngest seeker in a century," Harry finished, as he cut off Ron's raving.

"I can _not_believe that you, not only _didn't_ get in trouble, but that they've made you the seeker for the Qudditch team! It's unbelievable!" Ron howled.

"Yeah, it's brilliant, but do you think you can keep it down?" Harry asked, holding in his laughter. "Wood wants to keep it quiet. Says he wants me to be a secret weapon or something."

Harry glanced over his shoulder and noticed the pensive look on Hermione's face.

"How's Neville doing?" Harry asked her. She looked up with slightly narrowed eyes.

"Did you know all of this was going to happen?" she asked, pointedly. Harry sighed and nodded his head. "And you still let Neville get hurt?"

"I tried to prevent it!" Harry said defensively. "I kept trying to calm Neville down, but I have a feeling that nothing less than simply taking the broom away from him could have prevented what happened."

Hermione huffed and shook her head. "Would you have gotten on the quidditch team, if Neville hadn't gotten hurt?"

Harry looked away guiltily. "No.. not yet, anyway. Although there were still a few possible scenarios where it could have happened."

"Are you sure that you didn't _let_Neville get hurt, just so that you could get on the team?" she asked, accusingly.

"Hermione!" Ron gasped.

"What, so it's _my fault_ that Neville got hurt, then?" Harry asked.

"It is if you knew it was coming and did nothing to stop it, it is!"

"I _did_ try to stop it!"

"You could have told him. You could have told us!"

"Do you think that _knowing_ that he could lose control of his broom and end up falling and breaking his wrist would have helped calm him down and not get injured?"

"No, but maybe he wouldn't have even gotten on the darn broom in the first place if he knew!"

"Hermione, Neville _needs_ to learn how to fly a broom. Both of you do. It's an important and necessary skill, and _not_ knowing how to do it could very well get either of you hurt or even killed some day!"

Hermione looked like she was about to say something else, but her mouth clamped shut and she looked at Harry with speculative eyes.

"What have you seen?" she asked pointedly after a few silent moments.

Harry huffed and ran his hand through his unruly mop of black hair.

"I... only once. I mean... it was one of those really unlikely, and really distant visions. Just a single brief thing..." Harry muttered, as his eyes grew distant and were suddenly glazed over with a much harder and colder look than Hermione had ever seen in the young boy's eyes before.

"What did you see?" Hermione asked, again, but with a much softer and cautious voice this time.

Harry sighed and shrugged. "We... you, me and Ron – we were trying to escape from some... raid, or attack or something. I don't know. There was fire and there were hexes and curses flying everywhere. There were anti-apparition wards up so our only way out was by broom. You... well, you weren't very good on a broom. You were much slower than Ron and I and since you were so much less confident on the broom you... you couldn't dodge the curses as well."

Harry's voice grew weaker and more broken the longer he spoke. Finally he just stopped, unable to continue any farther.

'Was I hurt?" Hermione managed to ask around the thick lump that had developed in her throat.

Harry just nodded and looked away. He seemed to recover himself after a moment. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to shake himself out of his stupor.

"It's been quite a while since I saw that vision. It's gone now. I'm pretty sure. Besides, I won't let it get that bad. I'm going to kill him before it comes to war. That's why I'm... I...it won't get that far," Harry stopped with determination beyond his years etched in his young features.

Hermione just nodded her head silently as she thought over Harry's earlier words in her mind. After another long silence passed Hermione lifted her head and refocused on her friend. "When is the next flying lesson?"

Harry looked up and blinked at her. "Next Thursday."

Hermione nodded her head again. "Okay... I'll... I'll try harder. I'll help Neville too."

Harry heaved a sigh of relief and his hard features were broken by a small hesitant smile. "Good."


	13. Book 1: Letter and Potions

**Chapter 12: Letters and Potions**_  
_

_Dear Harry Potter_

_First off, I can't even begin to cover how surprised I was when I realized who you really are. Fred and George mentioned that they saw Harry Potter on the train, just before they boarded themselves, but I just didn't connect the dots and realize that the Harry that I had spoken to was actually The Harry Potter!_

_I really can't believe that you're even bothering to write to me._

_Congratulations on getting into Gryffindor, and I'm sorry you have to endure sharing a room with my brother. His snores are loud enough to wake the dead. I swear he could raise his own personal army of infiri with the racket he makes at night. If I can say nothing else positive about being the only one left in the house, it's that it is finally quiet here at night._

_With Ron's snoring, and the twins concocting Merlin knows what, and the resulting explosions... well, lets just say it wasn't all that uncommon to have my sleep interrupted at night._

_That thing about being a seer is actually really wicked! Why would you think I wouldn't want to keep writing to you because of that? And are you really serious about having visions of us being friends someday? So for you, its like you meet someone brand new, but you've actually been seeing them in your visions for years?_

_That must be so weird for you. Like - you would feel like you actually knew them, but they would have no idea who you were? So, you felt like you knew me, but I had no idea who you were? That would be so confusing._

_It was really sweat of you to want to cheer me up at the train station, by the way._

_Things really haven't been that bad here, although I was right about the knitting thing. My mum has this idea in her head that I need to learn all these 'woman of the house' skills. It's dreadful!_

_I've been hanging out a lot with a girl who lives just down the road from here. Her name is Luna and she's really nice... a little off, but real nice. I've known her for years, but with my brothers around I never bothered to spend a lot of time with her (It doesn't help that my brothers are rather nasty and call her names like 'Looney'.)_

_I hope your potions teacher isn't treating you badly. It's incredibly unprofessional of him to take out his anger against your parents on you. I mean, how unfair is that!_

_Ron still hasn't written to me, but the twins have at least. They've told me about Snape in the past too - I hear he's a real nasty git._

_I heard your flying lessons resulted in you getting on the team, is that for real? Fred and George said that you had been picked for the Seeker position! I thought that first years weren't allowed on the house teams? You must be really good!_

_Mum is calling for me to come help de-gnome the garden, so I've got to go._

_Thanks so much for writing, and of course I would love to keep being quill pals._

_Sincerely_

_Ginny Weasley_

"Harry got an owl," Neville said as Ron blearily wandered to the Gryffindor table and began to pile food onto his plate.

Ron made a grunt of some sort to show he'd heard Nevile but not much else.

"How late did you stay up last night, anyway, Ron?" Hermione asked in a rather scolding tone.

"Mphh... Snape. Damn potions essay..." Ron grumbled as he began to stuff bacon in his mouth.

Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head. "You wouldn't have had to stay up so late if you'd just gotten it done sooner, rather than leaving it until the last minute," she admonished him.

"Who's the letter from, Harry?" Nevile asked, turning away from the potential argument forming between their other two friends.

"Ginny – er, Ron's sister," Harry said as he folded the letter and put it back into the envelope.

Hermione looked over at him with slight surprise. "Why'd you get a letter from Ron's sister?"

"Yeah, Harry, why are you getting letters from my sister?" Ron said with a scowl, as he was apparently more awake now.

Harry just rolled his eyes and chuckled. "I got a letter from Ginny as a response from the letter I wrote to her. I wrote to her because she and Luna Lovegood are both going to be very good friends of mine next year. Back when I saw Ginny at the train station on September 1st I could tell how depressed she was at being left behind so I asked her if we could do the whole quill pal thing and she agreed."

"Looney Lovegood!" Ron exclaimed, choosing that one small detail to notice and grab on to.

"Don't call her that, Ron," Harry scolded with a rather tight frown on his face.

"Why not? She's mental! Why on earth would you wan to be friends with her?"

"She's not mental, she's interesting and has a very unique perspective on things," Harry argued.

"No, she's mental. Have you ever actually met her?"

"Not yet, but I already know I'm going to like her, just like I knew I would like all three of you long before I'd actually met any of you. I mean, I may not have met Luna, or really spent any time with Ginny in reality yet, but I already _think_ of both of them as friends. It was the same with you three. I mean, sure, in my older visions I wouldn't have become close with either Ginny or Luna for a few years, but now that I've seen both of them as close friends, I don't see any point in waiting. It's the same thing as you three."

"What do you mean, Harry?" Hermione asked, leaning in.

"Well, in my oldest visions – the first ones I ever saw any of you in, and when I still had no preconceived notions about the people I was seeing in my dreams, I didn't actually become close friends with all of you right away. I got close to Ron right off the bat because we shared a compartment on the train, but I wouldn't have become friends with you, Hermione, until after Halloween, and it would have been a few years before we all became close with Nevile."

Nevile and Hermione both looked rather surprised by this revelation.

"But you see, for me, once I'd had a large number of visions where I already _was_ friends with all of you, I couldn't exactly spend any amount of time around you and pretend I wasn't – even if, from your perspective, we'd just met and _weren't_ friends.

"I couldn't have followed that original timeline even if I had wanted to. I mean, after getting close to Nevile in the later visions, spending years pretending that I didn't know a thing about him? Couldn't do it. First off, it would have been dishonest, and second, why bother? I know Nev is a great guy. I wanted to be his friend. Why the hell should I wait until I hit my fifth year to realize that? No reason at all. And Hermione – I can't even imagine not being so close to you. It would just be... _wrong_.

"It's the same thing with Gin and Luna. Once they get to Hogwarts next year, I fully intend to try and be friends with both of them right away. I see no point at all in waiting, when I know I've got two really good potential friends."

Harry paused and bit his lower lip for a moment. "Did any of that actually make sense?"

"I... think so," Nevile said hesitantly. He still looked slightly confused, but he was nodding his head.

"Yes..." Hermione said slowly, "Actually, that's a really interesting way to look at it," Hermione mused with a thoughtful expression. "It's so hard for me to imagine what it must be like for you. I mean... most of the time you seem..."

"Normal?" Harry offered with a smirk.

Hermione blushed, "Um, yes. You really do seem normal most of the time – absolutely brilliant and kind of mature for an eleven year old boy... and you_know_ way too much stuff – but still pretty normal. It's easy to forget that you've been having these visions your whole life."

Harry nodded. "I think that's one reason I'm going to enjoy Luna's company so much. I won't feel as pressured to act 'normal' around her. She and I can be weird together." Harry chuckled, and Ron looked at him as if his head had just burst into flames.

"You're not going to start talking about crumple horned snorkacks and stuff, are you?" Ron asked, aghast.

"Crumple horned what?" Hermione said.

Harry laughed loudly. "Don't worry about it, Hermione – it's a Luna thing... well, Luna and her father. Her dad is the publisher of The Quibbler – it's a newspaper that reports on... uh, strange things. Undiscovered creatures and conspiracy theories mostly. Luna is a bit odd, but she's really great despite it all, and I know you'll grow to like her. I mean... she _is_ going to drive you batty at first, but you'll just need to learn how to decipher the nonsense from the really insightful and meaningful stuff."

"Looney Lovegood can be insightful?" Ron asked skeptically.

"_Ron,_" Harry said in a warning tone.

Ron held his hands up defensively. "Alright mate, alright. I won't call her _looney._ Happy?"

"Very."

– – –

"Today you will be brewing a basic nutritonic," Snape drawled as he walked back and forth in front of the class. With a wave of his hand the instructions appeared on the blackboard behind him.

"You will find additional instructions in your text book on page 26. You have until the end of the class period to finish. The potion requires fifteen minutes to simmer before you can bottle it, so don't dally or else you will not have enough time to finish."

With that, he stopped his pacing and stood to the side to await for the first opportunity to arise for him to call someone a dunderhead and berate them for some insignificant screw up.

Harry opened his text book to the proper page and turned to Nevile. His partner's wrist was now fully healed from the flying lesson incedent, and Nevile had looked perfectly healthy... up until it was finally time to attend Potions. Now he looked quite pale.

"Hey, Nev. How about you start adding the water to the cauldron while I go collect the ingredients?" Harry suggested. Nevile nodded his head and picked up the cauldron to take it to the water tap.

Harry turned, did one more quick check on the ingredients list and made his way over to the cabinet.

_Let's see... oatstraw, nettles, horsetail, gotu kola, eleuthero, passionflower, lemon balm, skullcap and mugwort._ Harry read off in his mind as he grabbed each object and made his way back to the table.

He was about to sit down when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end and his gut twisted a bit. He whirled around and had his wand out and pointing directly at Draco in an instant. Draco had his foot partially stuck out into the aisle as Nevile was walking back with their water-filled cauldron, and was clearly preparing to extend it out all the way into the other boy's path.

Draco's eyes widened, and his foot froze in place, only partially sticking out, but not far enough to actually trip Nevile, as he saw Harry aiming at him with a hard gaze.

"Potter! Put. That. Away! I will not tolerate any wand waving in my class." Snape spat.

Nevile had also stopped in place, stunned and confused at Harry's sudden action. He glanced down in front of him and saw Draco's foot and realized instantly what the boy had been planning to do only moments earlier.

"Longbottom, _Sit, Down!_ And Potter! Put your wand away, _now!_ Twenty points form Gryffindor!" Snape yelled. Harry didn't budge his wand, nor did he take his eyes away from Draco's until Nevile had quickly scurried past Draco and resumed his seat. Finally Harry sat down and he and Nevile began working on their potion.

Draco had visibly paled from the silent exchange, and continued to make surreptitious glances at Harry again and again throughout the remainder of the class.

– –

"He was going to trip Nevile, wasn't he?" Hermione asked Harry in a whisper, once class was called to a close and their classmates began to scurry out of the dungeons.

Harry just glanced at her and nodded.

"Potter!" Snape yelled.

"Yes, sir?" Harry turned and stood tall as he faced the professor with a calm, neutral expression.

"We have matters to discuss. You will stay after class."

"Yes sir," Harry said with a nod. He turned back to his friends who all looked concerned for him and gave them a reassuring smile. "I'll catch you guys later."

Once everyone else had cleared the room Harry went up to Snape's desk and stood there with silent patience. Snape finished sorting a stack of parchments before finally turning his full attention on the boy standing before him. His black beady eyes pierced into Harry with severe intensity. Harry stared back, unblinkingly, but with nothing more than neutral curiosity in his expression.

"You requested Occlumency lessons," Snape began after the silent staring match suddenly ended. "Tell me what you know of it first. Few are even familiar with this branch of magic, and next to none of them are eleven year olds. How did you even learn of it?"

"Professor Dumbledore said he explained to you about my visions..." Harry began hesitantly.

"He did, to some extent. I would still like to know exactly what it is in your _visions_," he sneered the word, "that informed you of the art."

"Oh, well," Harry began as he twisted up his face and looked towards the ceiling as he sifted through his visions, trying to remember what might have been his first one about Occlumency. "I guess the first vision I had where I heard the word Occlumency was one I had when I was seven years old. The vision took place during my um... I think it was my fifth year at Hogwarts. Apparently Voldemort –"

"Do not say the Dark Lord's name," Snape hissed.

Harry narrowed his eyes and shot Snape a speculative glare for a moment before returning his expression to a neutral one and resuming where he left off. "Apparently _the dark lord_ had been growing in power that year and our link had begun to strengthen. Because of that I was having more and more visions through his eyes. Dumbledore thought it would be prudent to teach me Occlumency so I could block him out. He had you start giving me lessons."

Snape's eyebrows rose high into his forehead. "You saw all of this in a vision of the future?"

"More like a whole bunch of visions over the span of several months. That future is gone now though. Most of my older visions are invalid now. I've done things too differently for those futures to ever take place now."

"So did any of these visions you had of me teaching you Occlumency _teach_ you anything about Occlumency?" Snape asked with the slightest hint of curiosity in his eyes.

"Um... our lessons during my fifth year weren't very successful... in fact, it was my total and utter failure at learning Occlumency in those visions that lead to some... some things that I absolutely refuse to let happen in reality. It's one of the biggest reasons I decided that I was going to learn this and master it for real."

"Is that so? Well, you sniveling little whelp, what _do you know_ then?" Snape sneered.

"Well... I know that I have to create a mindscape and sort through all of my memories. I already do the memory sorting thing to some extent. I really need to with the enormous number of memories and visions that I have. There's just so much to remember – plus if I didn't sort it, I'd have trouble staying sane. I mean, I have my realtime memories that are _real memories_ of things that I've actually done, but then there are the memories of things I've done in visions. Things that haven't actually happened, and things that most likely never will happen. And then there's the third-person visions of past events. Like the visions I've had of my parents when they were younger, before I was even born."

Snape's eyes widened slightly at that last statement, but he made no comment.

"So... anyway, I know that I need to create some sort of system in my mindscape for protecting different levels of memories, but all I've really got is the vague theoretic knowledge of what I'm supposed to do – not really how I'm supposed to go about doing it.

"I've got a book called _Mind Arts, the practice of occluding ones mind, vol. 1_ and I've been reading it for the last month as often as I can manage. I've been using it to help me do a more thorough job at sorting my memories, and I think it's helping." Harry trailed off and sighed, waiting to see what Snape's next move would be.

The dark, imposing professor shot Harry a raised eyebrow and looked down upon the small boy speculatively again.

_Well, he has certainly taken the initiative here._ Snape pondered for a moment. _If the little wretch is telling the truth about his memory sorting then he may already be well on his way to being properly prepared._

"Fine, Potter. It sounds like you may have the start of a reasonable foundation. I have another text I want you to read as well," he said turning around and going to his desk. He opened one of the lower drawers and pulled out a book and handed it to Harry.

_'The Hidden Power of the Mind, and the Power of Hiding it from Others_' Harry read the title and actually cracked a tiny smile.

"Thank you, sir. I'll start reading it tonight."

"Make sure that you do. Read the first three chapters, and begin with the exercises described there. We will meet again next Friday evening at 8pm for two hours. I expect you to be properly prepared."

"Yes, sir. I will be. Thank you, sir," Harry said with a respectable nod of his head and a rather excited glow to his eyes.

"Be sure that you are. You are dismissed."


	14. Book 1: Snivellus and Moony

**Chapter 13: Snivellus and Moony**

That weekend arrived and he still hadn't heard back from Remus so Harry found Tonks after breakfast on Saturday and asked her if she would be willing to take him to visit Sirius again.

She enthusiastically agreed and the two met an hour later in the headmaster's office to use his floo to St. Mungos.

The visit was an enjoyable one. Sirius was visibly improved by leaps and bounds. He was already starting to fill out from all the nutrient potions, and the wonderful house-elf prepared meals.

His color had returned and his eyes lit up the moment he saw his two guests arrive.

Sirius told Harry that he had already begun to work on the process of gaining guardianship. He had already filled out a mountain of paperwork, and had accessed his family vault at Gringott's, remotely, and sent out some _monetary persuasion_ to a couple ministry officials to keep the proceedings quiet.

Harry told Sirius about his own correspondence with the goblins. They had already sent a goblin out to the Potter beach property and did an initial survey. They had sent Harry the warding specifications and estimates and he had already responded and told them to get started.

He had told the Goblins that Sirius Black was to be keyed into the wards, so they would probably be sending a representative to get a small blood sample from him in the next few days.

Once all the serious business was done and taken care of, the group sat and talked about Hogwarts. Sirius told Harry and Tonks several stories of some of the trouble he had managed to get into over the years and both of them enjoyed the stories thoroughly.

Finally their time ran out and the two had to leave and head back to the school. Harry promised to visit Sirius at the hospital the following weekend, knowing that it would probably be the last weekend that Sirius would be at St. Mungo's, and as such, his last chance for a real visit with him again until the Christmas Holidays.

– – –

The next school week began and Harry finally felt himself slipping into a predictable routine. Hermione joined him every morning for his jogs and exercises. She still had a long way to go, but she learned fast and had the motions down near-perfect by mid week. It was now only a matter of conditioning her body, and that would take more time.

Harry continued to excel in his classes. He would get his transfigurations and charms down perfect within the first few minutes of the practical practice, and spend the rest of the class helping Nevile and Ron. Hermione was catching on quicker and quicker, and she didn't seem to get nearly as frustrated when it took her longer than it took Harry.

She seemed to finally be coming to terms with the fact that Harry had an unfair advantage and it was unreasonable for her to expect the same results from herself. The fact that she got her spells to work before anyone else in the class, appeased her ego to some extent.

That Thursday morning when Hermione came down the stairs she found Harry sitting at the base of the girls stairs waiting for her with a small wrapped package in his lap.

"What have you got there?" she asked, looking at him curiously. Harry just smiled back at her and stood up, handing the package over.

"Happy birthday," was all he said.

Hermione gaped at him for a stunned moment. She hadn't told any of them when her birthday was, not having wanted any of them to make a fuss, but she realized suddenly that it was silly of her to be surprised by this.

_Of course Harry would know._She mentally scolded herself and chuckled.

"Oh Harry, you didn't have to get me anything!"

"I know. But I wanted to," was all he said in return.

Hermione looked down at the package in her hands. It was obviously a book. It was the right size and weight for a book, and she quickly found herself removing the brightly colored paper from it.

Once revealed she looked down at the book with bewildered curiosity.

It appeared to be blank.

There was no title, and as she flipped through the pages quickly, she saw that they were all empty. And yet the cover looked aged and thoroughly manhandled. It was also extremely thick – far thicker than she would ever find appropriate for a journal.

She opened the front cover and noticed that there was something printed on the inside cover.

_Anybook_

"What is this, Harry?" she finally asked him.

He just grinned wider.

"It's an Anybook! They're absolutely brilliant! It took me forever to find one for sale. Most people who own them don't like to part with them, and I don't think that there are any people left who know how to make them."

"What's an _Anybook_?" she asked, suddenly even more interested.

"You can bond that book to a bookcase of your choosing. Once the bonding is set, a table of contents will appear on the first few pages of the Anybook. It will be a list of every book that resides inside the bookcase. Then you can tap your wand on the name of whatever book you want to read and the Anybook's blank pages will suddenly be filled with the contents of the book you chose."

Harry reached over and flipped the book so that they were looking at the inside of the back cover. "See those three icons?" he said pointing at three symbols that were printed there.

Hermione nodded and he continued.

"You tap this one with your wand and it'll reset the book to blank after you've loaded up a book in it. The symbols in these two icons are the ones that you use to bond the book to a bookcase of your choosing. You just inscribe these runes on the bookcase and perform a fairly simple spell. I can help you with it if you need me to. I don't know if I can do it with my wand, but I know I can do it with Addy's help."

"One of the best things is that you can keep adding more and more books into the bookshelf and the Anybook's table of contents will update automatically."

Harry paused and looked at the stunned look on Hermione's face. "'Mione?" he asked hesitantly. "Are you alright? Do you not like it?"

"Not like it? Are you _mental?_ Harry, _I love it!_ This is absolutely brilliant!" she squealed as she jumped the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him in an exuberant hug.

"So you really do like it?" Harry asked, laughing.

"Harry, this is probably the best birthday gift that anyone has ever given me! Thank you so much!"

"Well, I'm glad you like it. You're welcome," Harry replied with a beaming smile.

– –

So far, Harry had managed to keep his interactions with Professor Quirrell to a minimum. He attended his defense classes, but he always sat towards the back and kept his head down. He never allowed the garlic-smelling man to make eye contact with him at all, and kept as low a profile in the man's class as he could manage.

The strange behavior had caught the attention of his friends and he knew it was inevitable that they would call him on it.

"Harry, what on earth is up with you in Defense class?" Ron asked as the four entered the common room after class had come to an end that day.

Harry hesitated and looked around the room. Dean and Seamus had entered just a few moments before them and seemed to both be settling comfortably into the common room. Neither looked ready to head up to the dormitory so Harry knew that if he really needed it, he could drag his friends upstairs for some privacy.

Just the same, he wasn't really sure _what_ he would tell them, even if he wanted to.

Harry huffed and ran his hand through his hair. Three pairs of curious eyes were trained on him, and it was obvious that their patience wasn't going to last forever.

Harry motioned towards the stairs and began to make his way up. The other three quickly followed and within a minute the group was gathered around Harry's bed.

"I'm not really sure how much to tell you guys," Harry began hesitantly.

"Why not tell us everything?" Hermione asked.

Harry sighed. "It's... it's really complicated, and you'll just end up worried and stressing when it's something that none of you can do anything about."

"Why don't you let _us_ decide whether or not it's something worth being worried and stressed about," Hermione said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I don't know, Hermione... I just... I don't think I can really explain it right now. I still need to sort through some things, and try to figure out a plan of attack for dealing with it."

"Why not just tell us, then! We can _help_ you to make this plan, or whatever. You don't have to handle everything yourself, you know."

Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry you guys. Really I am, but this is something that _I_ have to deal with. It's my responsibility. If I figure out a way that you can help me, then I'll come to you. I promise."

Hermione scowled at him, but Ron and Nevile mostly just looked kind of confused.

"Look, if you want to help then listen. I'll just try to make this short and simple," Harry began again, "Quirrell is trouble. _Big trouble_. Steer clear of him as much as you can. Never make direct eye contact with him because he could use that to try and read your mind. I don't know if Quirrell, _specifically,_knows Legilimency but... well, I'd rather not take any chances.

"Never let on that you think something more might be seriously wrong with him. As far as he's concerned, you're just normal students, and he's just an odd, smelly teacher. As long as that remains true, there's no risk. Try to stay under his radar, and steer clear of him as much as you can. Hermione, this means not trying to get extra homework from him. Just stay away from him. He's a miserable teacher anyway and he won't offer you any worthwhile instruction anyway."

"Alright Harry, but... well, _why_ should we stay way from him? Can't you tell us anything?" Hermione asked.

"He's dangerous. If that's not enough then... okay, it has to do with the thing that was stolen from Gringott's. The thing that the three-headed dog is guarding. That's all I'll tell you."

The other three shared a wide-eyed look, but finally shrugged and gave it up as a bad job. Harry had told them as much as he was willing.

– – –

Harry had been practicing meditation and sorting his memories into different theoretical 'security levels' all week. He dedicated an hour each night before bed to it, and as such, was heading to bed earlier than his dorm mates.

He actually did some of his meditations and sorting down in his trunk's 'work room'. When it came time to sort through the memories of his more violent visions, it helped calm his nerves to have Addy there to talk with.

Having her to listen and act as a sounding board also helped him determine how best to sort his memories for 'security' purposes. He hoped to try and get at least some basic protective measures in place for the more sensitive visions before any real-world tests from professor Snape. He knew the man would be testing him by all-out attacking Harry's mind, but at least he was getting some legitimate instruction to go with it and supplement the process.

His occlumency lessons would involve more instruction than _'clear your mind'_ since he wasn't on such utterly rotten terms with his professor... or at least, not yet. Hopefully they would _never_ reach on such bad terms, but Harry knew it was entirely possible if he ever lost his cool with the professor.

Harry knew that he needed to keep any of his visions pertaining to Snape's spying, and any information on the horcruxes away from his professor, but he also wanted to keep the visions he'd had of his parent's school days locked away. Harry knew that if Snape was aware of just _how much_ Harry knew about that time, he would be rather mortified, and as such, incredibly angry.

Severus Snape was a very private man, and having the offspring of his boyhood rival and nemesis fully and entirely aware of how much he was tormented during his youth, would be a crushing blow to his pride and he would respond with an intense anger.

Harry did not want to be on the receiving end of that anger, so he was hoping that the preparation work he had done so far would be sufficient to at least keep _those_ memories private.

He had seen from his visions that when the two of them were cooperating and Snape was making a legitimate effort, that Harry could learn a tremendous amount about the mind arts from the man. The key was to get that cordial cooperation started and maintained.

When Friday arrived, he felt about as prepared as was possible for his first legitimate Occlumency lesson with Snape.

He'd shoved his most sensitive memories as far back into the recesses of his mind as possible and had a mountain of other visions and information piled on top of them. He couldn't construct a proper shield yet, but he could at least drown out the sensitive stuff with a lot of rubbish as cover.

As Harry had expected Snape had begun 'testing Harry's current defenses' by simply attacking his mind.

It wasn't exactly pleasant, but at least he was prepared for it.

Much to Harry's shock and awe, Snape actually seemed mildly impressed by what he found. He even made some comment about how well ordered Harry's mind was, especially for an eleven year old.

Once the initial 'mind raping' was sufficiently explored, Snape actually began discussing the theory and practical application behind construction a mindscape, and the lesson progressed from there.

Books were one thing, but having an actual master of the arts sitting there in front of him and able to answer his questions and clear up the things he had trouble understanding went so much farther for Harry.

The two ended up in a surprisingly deep conversation on the nature of magic and how the mind and body worked together to interpret, dictate, and mange a person's magical core. Harry explained to Snape what he had theorized about how mastering mind magic actually greatly increased a wizard's magical potential since it gave them a much stronger comprehension and connection to their magical core.

These were all concepts that Snape himself had mulled over in his own mind, many years ago, and he was honestly surprised to find someone so young thinking so thoroughly about such high level theoretical magic concepts.

An hour and twenty minutes into their private lesson, during a particularly enthusiastic conversation, Snape mentioned what was honestly an extremely high level concept that Harry was actually unfamiliar with. It was that moment that brought about the suddenly realization to Snape that he had managed to completely forget that he was talking with a _child_.

_James Potter's_ child, at that!

_'No.__**Lily's**__child,'_ Snape mentally corrected himself,_'The boy really is much too smart. It's a wonder he didn't get sorted into Ravenclaw.'_

At the end of the two hour session, Harry left feeling extremely confident. It had gone _so much better_ than any of the visions he had ever had of an occlumency lesson. Not that he'd really had many. He's had visions of taking lessons with Snape in his fifth year, and that was after a previous four years of constantly bickering with the man.

Later, after he had first decided that he would explore taking Occlumency lessons _sooner_ he had a couple visions where he had managed to convince Snape to teach him during his second year, but those hadn't gone very well either.

_Those_ visions were still significantly different since Snape had actually given Harry some legitimate instruction in them, and Harry had first been introduced to the concept of the mindscape.

But still – a tension had existed between the two of them that had impeded the learning process.

It was obvious that the choices Harry had made in an attempt to make this work better had done their job. Harry was actually feeling quite optimistic at this point, and was looking forward to the next lesson.

– – –

It was Saturday again and Harry was standing in the Headmaster's office fidgeting anxiously. He had received a reply from Remus Lupin earlier that week and the two had agreed to meet in the Headmaster's office so that Remus could then escort Harry to St. Mungo's to visit Sirius. It was the last opportunity Harry would have to visit his godfather for quite a while since he was being discharged from the hospital the following day.

"I must admit, Harry, I was most surprised when you informed me of who would be coming to take you to visit Sirius," Dumbledore said from his desk as he observed the young man waiting impatiently in his office.

"I don't see why you'd be surprised. Remus and Sirius were my dad's best friends. It makes sense that I would try to get Remus involved in this."

"That is true," Dumbledore said with a nod of his head. "Tell me, Harry, are you aware of Mr. Lupin's special circumstances?"

"I am fully aware of Mooney's furry little problem, if that's what you're referring to," Harry said, shooting his headmaster a slightly cold glare.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled and his beard twitched in what Harry thought was probably a bit of a smile.

"Isn't that what your father called it?"

Harry nodded. "Yes."

"You mentioned during your first visit to me that you had actually seen some visions of our parents from before your birth. How much of that time was from their school days, I wonder."

Harry smiled and looked away towards the fireplace trying to control his desire to chuckle. "Quite a bit, actually."

Before either had an opportunity to say another word, the fireplace came to life with bright green flames and out stagged a rather shabby looking man with a pale, scarred face and light brown hair.

Harry focused all of his attention on the man and smiled widely.

"Hello Mr. Lupin," Harry said with a polite nod of his head.

Remus turned to face the boy and stood dumbstruck for a solid second before smiling softly.

"Dear Merlin, you look just like your father at this age. Its like looking back in time," Remus whispered.

Harry flushed lightly and ducked his head.

"Thank you for agreeing to come with me, Mr. Lupin," Harry said, looking back up and smiling at the man.

"No, Harry, thank _you,_ for writing to me and asking me to join you."

Harry just nodded and glanced back at the headmaster for a moment before looking back at Remus. "Shall we be off?"


	15. Book 1: Lessons

**Chapter 14: Lessons**

Sirius Black stood leaning against the window sill, resting his head against the cool glass pane. He was sick and tired of the hospital and was definitely looking forward to getting out of there the following morning.

He couldn't even fathom how much his life had changed in the last three weeks. It was beyond comprehension.

One day he'd been rotting away in Azkaban prison and the next he was collected by a small group of aurors and taken to the Ministry for questioning under truth serum and an amalgam of potions to help wake him up and make him coherent enough to answer them. Next thing he knows he's in St. Mungo's and some Ministry official is trying to deliver some type of formal apology and telling him that he's been found innocent on all charges.

It wasn't even until the following day that he was told that bloody _Wormtail_ had been apprehended, tried, and sentenced to life in Azkaban in his stead!

_Wormtail was alive!_That dirty little rat hadn't even had the grace to blow himself up properly! No, he'd gotten away and been in hiding all these years.

But despite all of those shocking revelations, nothing compared to the day Harry showed up with Andromeda's girl.

To discover that the boy who Sirius was supposed to have raised in his parents stead had actually been the one responsible for all of this. For catching Wormtail; for getting Sirius's conviction appealed, and getting him freed... it was just beyond remarkable.

The boy's talent was also quite a shock. Sirius had heard James's dad talking about some great aunt who was a pretty powerful seer, but what he'd learned about Harry's ability was so far beyond anything he'd ever heard of before. And the amount of control the boy seemed to have over it!

Sirius shook his head and smiled as he thought about his godson and all the boy had done for him.

When he was first beginning to think about his new found freedom, and began to wonder what the bloody hell he was going to do now that he was out of that damnedable prison, he really had no idea where he was going to go. He'd basically condemned himself to going back to his family's house on Grimmauld Place until he could arrange for a place less detestable. But now he was only a day away from going to the old beach house that he and James had spent so many fun relaxed summers in.

Sirius liked the Potter manor too – after he'd run away from his own wretched family in his fifth year, and the Potters were kind enough to take him in, he'd spent a fair amount of time there, but his fondest memories were at that beach house in North Devon.

He knew the place would need some maintenance, but he was looking forward to some hard work to keep him focused. He needed to get the place presentable for when Harry would arrive during the Christmas holidays.

Harry.

Was that boy really only eleven? It was hard for Sirius to really believe it. He was remarkably mature for his age, and physically, he was surprisingly toned for such a small, young, thing. He was a bit on the thin side, and a bit shorter than his dad had been at this age, but his hair and face was almost like looking at an old photo of James Potter. Except for the eyes. Harry had his mother's brilliant green eyes.

Despite being a little small-looking, Sirius had realized the first time he really touched Harry's shoulders and arms that the boy was solid muscle. It was hard to tell under the bulky school robes, but once Harry had removed his outer robes during his second visit, and sat around in a pair of black slacks and a thin short-sleeved white t-shirt, it became all the more obvious to Sirius that the kid didn't exactly slack off in the physical department.

James had been rather coddled, like most pureblood rich boys are, and it had taken until his 3rd year for him to really start to bulk up some muscle. Quidditch played a big role in that. Well, that and the fact that James started to notice girls around then and wanted to look presentable.

Harry, in contrast, had obviously worked his scrawny little arse off for those muscles. The boy had told Sirius that he did something called 'karatay' or something. It was a muggle thing.

Personality-wise, Harry wasn't really anything like either of his parents. If he took after either of them at all, it was his mother. He was extremely mature and responsible, not to mention the fact that he was obviously brilliant.

He seemed to have an exorbitant amount of information crammed into his little head. He _knew_ things. Sirius realized it was a part of the whole _seer_thing, but it was still bizarre to have this boy who he had never met before, show up and seem to know everything about him. The kid even knew about things that the marauders did back in their school days. Things that _no one_ knew.

There were times that Harry would start talking about things and Sirius had a very hard time meshing the image of the very young boy sitting in front of them, with the very grown-up way he spoke and topics he spoke about.

He had personally handled all of the arrangements with the goblins for the house warding. A goblin had showed up at St. Mungo's only a few days earlier so that Sirius could be properly keyed into the wards when he arrived on the property.

The fact that an eleven year old would even know the details about property warding, let alone know how to negotiate and organize everything with the Gringott's goblins was almost mind blowing.

Sirius realized that he had _never_ had to deal with any responsibilities even remotely so serious during his youth. Even when he ran away from home, the Potters had taken care of him. He'd really had an extremely care free life up until his seventh year when the war really started to heat up and the James's parents were killed in a raid.

Everything had been so simple and easy, and then suddenly the whole world had seemingly come crashing down around them. It was like having to wake up to the world of adult responsibilities over night.

It seemed that Harry had become acquainted with adult responsibilities long ago, though. That thought didn't really please Sirius any. It wasn't right for someone so young to have to deal with things like that. Harry needed to be a kid, no matter what crazy fate the child might see for himself.

Sirius decided that he was going to make sure that Harry had as much fun and relaxation as he could manage that next summer. He wanted the kid to actually _be a kid_ for a change.

A light tapping came on the door and Sirius turned around to greet his visitors, expecting to find Harry and Tonks again. His breath caught in his throat as his eyes lay upon a very familiar old face.

"Mooney," Sirius whispered.

"Hello Padfoot," Remus replied with a sad smile. He paused for a moment and shifted his weight from one foot the other before looking back into his old friends eyes. "I'm so sorry."

Sirius shook his head and returned the smile. "Me too."

He glanced down to Remus's side and saw Harry standing there looking up, back and forth between the two of them with a wide, soft smile.

"Thanks pup," Sirius said. Harry just nodded his head and grinned.

– – –

Ron plopped down onto the bench and blinked blearily for a few seconds before reaching forward and scooping some eggs onto his plate.

It was their 4th week of school and Harry and Hermione were sitting next to each other and discussing animatedly over some ridiculously thick old book from the library. The two were unnaturally awake for so early in the morning. For that matter, they _always_ seemed unnaturally awake.

"Blimey you two, how can you be so awake? I _hate_ Thursday mornings. Ruddy astronomy class... How can they expect anyone to get up in time to make it to breakfast in the morning after a class that gets out at 1am?" Ron grumbled as he began to pile on some bacon.

Harry just shrugged. "Guess I'm just a morning person."

"Downright unnatural, I say," Ron said, shaking his head.

"You know, I was wondering about that," Seamus began as he looked at the group and began to pile on some bacon of his own.

"Hmm?" Harry questioned, turning his attention to his Irish dorm mate.

"Well, it's just that you're always up and dressed before any of the rest of us even wake up. Why on earth do you bother to get up so ruddy early?"

Hermione blinked and looked from Harry, to Seamus, to Ron with a rather blank expression. "You mean you guys don't know?" she finally asked.

"Don't know what?" Ron asked. Nevile perked his head up now, wondering what Hermione was talking about too.

"Harry gets up early to go jogging and do his karate exercise. I've been joining him for the last couple weeks, actually. He's even teaching me some karate fundamentals, it's really fascinating. That's why I've been getting up early too."

"Jogging!" Ron exclaimed with a horrified expression. "Why on earth would you want to do something like that? Especially if it means getting up so early?"

"Wait, did you say karate?" Dean Thomas said excitedly as he came over and sat down beside Harry, on the opposite side of Hermione.

"What's karate?" Seamus asked.

"Thas tha fightn thn you talked 'bout a week er two ago, righ'?" Ron said around a mouthful of pancakes.

"Ron, please swallow before you speak," Hermione admonished, making a face.

"Fighting thing?" Seamus asked after he took a moment to try and decipher what Ron had said.

"Yeah, Harry's got a black-belt in karate, that's what you said, right Harry?" Nevile said, glad that he could apparently contribute to the conversation.

"A black-belt! Seriously?" Dean exclaimed.

"No," Harry said, quickly, "I'm still just a brown-belt."

"But you'd have gotten your black-belt by now if you hadn't had to come to Hogwarts," Hermione insisted.

"Perhaps, but I haven't actually gotten it yet, so it doesn't count. It's an honor that has to be bestowed upon me by my sensei, and since that hasn't happened yet, I still just have a brown-belt."

"How in Merlin's beard does the color of your belt matter?" Seamus asked, clearly confused by the conversation going on between the muggle-raised students.

"It's the ranking system. Red, brown, and Black are the three highest ranks. Someone with a black-belt in karate is supposed to be so skilled in the fighting art that they could kill someone with their _bare hands_," Dean enthused with an awed, hushed voice.

"You're being over dramatic," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "And you've seen too many movies. It's not about learning to _kill_ someone. It's a fighting style, yes, but it's more about defense, personal discipline, and training your spirit, body, and mind as one."

"Wait," Seamus said, holding his hand up and looking around, "so are you talking about muggle fighting... like without wands? Fighting with your fists?"

"And your feet, too! Kicks and throws and _karate chops!_" Dean said, doing a rather pathetic, and comical 'chopping' motion with his hand.

Harry laughed at his antics and Hermione just rolled her eyes.

"So did you say that Harry is teaching you?" Dean asked Hermione before turning hopeful eyes on Harry.

"Yes! And it's so interesting! It's hard work, but I already feel more in-tune with my magic because of it," Hermione enthused.

"How would learning muggle fighting help you get more 'in-tune' with your magic?" Ron asked skeptically. Seamus looked equally dubious, but Nevile looked extremely interested.

The group all turned their attention to Harry and he gave a good natured sigh and smiled at them.

"Okay, well in karate-do, there is a concept called _kime,_ sometimes it's called _ki,_sometimes _chi._Kime means 'spirit'. It's like a person's inner energy and the karateka taps into their _kime_ for energy, power, and inspiration. I've come to realize that the person's _kime_ is basically their magical core. Through karate-do, _muggle_ karate _masters_ have actually managed to tape into their magical cores, even if it is significantly less powered than an actual wizard."

"For real?" Ron said, looking rather surprised. "Muggles tapping into magic?"

"The true masters can," Harry said nodding. "they have to focus it a certain way, and I don't think they'd really be able to use an actual wand or cast spells, but they have undoubtedly managed to tape into some form of magic."

"Wicked!" Dean exclaimed.

"Aside from learning to focus on and tap into your _kime,_ a karateka learns physical combat moves like jabbing, blocking, punching, kicking, sweeping, throwing, deflecting, locking, and dodging," Harry continued. "It's comprised of techniques that have been perfected over hundreds of year. Buddhism, Taoism, and the code of Bushido have all played parts in the development of the martial arts philosophy of karate."

Harry paused in his impromptu lecture as he took in the confused expressions of Ron, Seamus, and Ron.

"Should I stop?" Harry asked, hesitantly.

"No way! This is awesome. How long have you been studying it, anyway?" Dean said, leaning even closer to Harry.

"Since I was six – almost seven," Harry said.

"Wow, that's brilliant. My dad got me in a junior football league when I was seven, but I never got to do anything like karate. That would have been so wicked!"

"What's the big deal? It's just punching and stuff, right?" Seamus asked, dubiously.

Harry just shook his head at the magically-raised boy, but Dean looked personally offended by Seamus's comment.

"You have no bloody idea what you're on about, mate. Martial arts are amazing! I wish I could show you some of Bruce Lee's movies, then you'd understand," Dean exclaimed.

"It really is incredible to watch Harry when he's practicing," Hermione said, nodding her head in Harry's direction.

Dean's eyes lit up and he focused on Harry again. "Do you think I could see you do something?"

Harry looked hesitantly at the group around him for a moment before shrugging. "I suppose so. I could run through my katas. I always cut my exercises short on Thursdays mornings since I tend to sleep later thanks to Astronomy the night before. None of us have any classes until after lunch so we could just go out onto the grounds after breakfast."

"Brilliant!" Dean roared.

– –

The group traveled outside the castle a half hour later and gathered in a semi-circle around Harry. He removed his outer robes and set them neatly folded on the soft grass beside Hermione.

Harry closed his eyes and focused on his center for a moment as he started some simple breathing exercises.

Ron rose an eyebrow and looked over at Seamus.

A moment later Harry's feet shot into a strong stance and his hand shot out into the air with surprising force and he a sharp "Yah!" that caused Nevile, Seamus, and Ron to jump in surprise.

His arms shot into a block position a beat later; then a solid jab; then down into a sweeping kick. Each move was solid, determined, and in perfect form that only results from years of repetitive practice.

"Ah! Yah! Hyah!" Harry continued to go through the motions of his katas, losing himself to the exercises he had done so many times over the years.

As he slipped easily into his focus, his magic began to seep into his limps and the group could feel his magical force exploding with each punch, jab, and kick.

"Bloody hell," Ron whispered in awe. Seamus's jaw was laying slack, and Dean looked downright awestruck.

Harry's vocalizations drew the attention of a few other students and by the time Harry had completed his routine, he had gathered quite a crowd.

He came to a rest and pushed out a calming breath before opening his eyes again and looking around. The group of gathered students were silent for all of two seconds before they erupted in whoops and applause.

Harry flushed a bit in surprise and embarrassment and quickly made his way over to Hermione to recover his robes.

He was instantly bombarded with questions and praise that he found entirely overwhelming. His decision to do this little demonstration was entirely random, and he had never seen this scenario occur in any of his visions. This entire thing was brand new, and undiscovered territory.

Among the group of observers that seemed most enthusiastic, were Marcus Belby, a 2nd year Ravenclaw student, Randolph Burrow another Ravenclaw that Harry knew was on their house team – a chaser he thought; Derrick Fleet, a 3rd year beater from the Slytherin quidditch team, Blaise Zabini, a Slytherin in Harry's year, and Zacharias Smith a Hufflepuff, also in Harry's year.

Before Harry even knew what was happening, he had somehow found himself agreeing to do some sort of martial arts demonstration/class twice a week. Even the two Slytherins were rather enthusiastic about it, and neither honestly seemed to mind that it was _Harry Potter_ who would be teaching the 'class', nor the fact that he would be teaching them a _muggle_ fighting style.

The magic in the exercise was obvious to all who had witnessed it, so the fact that it was developed originally by muggles didn't seem to really bother them. It obviously had practical applications in the magical world if Harry could do what he just did.

Harry wasn't interested in inviting all of these people to join he and Hermione in their morning exercises – he also doubted that many of them would dedicate themselves to an every-morning regimen, either – so instead he said that they could meet every Tuesday and Sunday afternoon, an hour and a half before dinner. It was the best time that didn't interfere with anyone's class schedules or quidditch practices.

Harry did extend an offer to Ron and Nevile if they wanted to join his morning jog with Hermione, but Ron had absolutely no desire to get up that early, and Nevile doubted he could manage all that running.

– – –

During the second week of October Harry got another letter from Dumbledore asking if he had time to come for another meeting.

When Harry entered the office he noticed that Ravenclaw's diadem was sitting in the center of Dumbledore's desk. Harry could sense that the invisible darkness that had utterly consumed the precious artifact was now gone.

"Hello Harry," Dumbledore greeted.

"Good evening, professor."

"Lemon drop?" Dumbledore asked as he motioned towards a dish on the edge of his desk.

"Uh, no thank you sir," Harry said, eying the candy dish with slightly narrowed eyes before shaking himself and smiling lightly at the headmaster. "I see you managed to destroy the horcrux without harming the diadem," Harry commented with barely contained curiosity as he sat down in the overstuffed armchair in front of Dumbledore's desk.

"Ah, yes. That I was," Dumbledore replied with a twinkle in his eyes.

"May I ask how you did it, sir?"

"Professor Snape managed to contact a man who was able to provide us with some basilisk venom. I soaked the entire diadem in a small bowl of the substance and that proved sufficient. The horcrux had quite a violent reaction to it, but when it had settled down, the original diadem itself remained unharmed. I had to thoroughly cleanse if afterwards to remove all traces of the venom, though."

Harry's hopes fell and he sighed, but smiled despite his disappointment. Harry knew that he couldn't exactly soak himself in basilisk venom and survive the incedent, so this wasn't a solution to his... _problem_. Dumbledore gave him a curious look, but didn't comment on Harry's reaction.

"I'm glad you were able to keep the diadem intact. Does it still work? I mean, it's original function, that is."

"It seems to, yes."

"That's good," Harry nodded his head and looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Harry, I understand that Sirius Black was released from St. Mungo's hospital several weeks ago and has been recovering in his new home. Are you still in frequent contact with him?"

"Yes."

"Have you discussed the _object_ that you told me was recovered by his younger brother Regulus?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, sir, he knows, vaguely. I didn't tell him that it was a _horcrux_ specifically – just that it was a dark object that belonged to Voldemort and that I needed to recover it. I told him that it's hidden at Grimmauld Place, but asked that he wait to try and recover it until I was present."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I think it'll be necessary that I be there to keep Kreacher from... reacting _badly_."

"Kreacher is the Black family's house elf, yes?"

"That's correct, sir."

"Why would he react badly, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Regulus's dying order to the house elf was to destroy the locket. He was never able to do it, of course, so he considers himself a failure. I don't think he has ever stopped punishing himself regularly for failing to carry out his master's final orders.

"If we just try to take the locket by force he will react very badly, and I'm sure you know that it is very unwise to underestimate the power of a house elf. However, I'm convinced that if we inform him that we are there to help destroy it, he will cooperate. It may be necessary to destroy it with him present, though."

"Harry, I'm not sure I'm terribly comfortable with you being present during the destruction of one of these objects. It is a very violent and unpleasant thing to witness," Dumbledore said carefully.

"I've seen it in my visions for years, sir. In most of my visions I was the one personally responsible for destroying the horcruxes. It was actually only recently that I decided that I would enlist your help this early on in the process, and until I made that decision, all of my visions reflected a timeline where I took care of them on my own. Besides, you'll need me to be there to properly destroy this one."

"Oh? How so?"

"It requires a parselmouth to open the locket. The enchantments that Voldemort placed on it prevents destroying the actual horcrux unless you can get the locket open. The outer casing is actually resistant to basilisk venom – only the interior is vulnerable. I suppose if you used fiend fire you could just smelt the entire thing into a puddle and that would do it without having to actually open it," Harry trailed off, shrugging.

"Ah, well... I suppose we can work something out then," Dumbledore conceded after a moment. "Have you discussed a time with Mr. Black when we could make the journey to Grimmauld Place?"

"No, I figured that we would work around your schedule. It's not like Sirius has a lot of demands on his time right now, and as long as we do it while I don't have class, I'm free as well. You're the one who has to deal with the Ministry, the Wizengamot, and managing an entire school."

Dumbledore grinned and his eyes twinkled a bit. "That is true. Alright Harry, how about this coming weekend? We could leave Sunday after breakfast?"

"Sounds fine with me. I'll write Sirius and let him know. Should he floo here and then the three of us make the trip to Grimmauld Place? I don't think that the house's floo is in functioning order at the moment... it may be necessary to apparate there."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with curiosity for a moment. "Have you ever apparated before, Harry?"

"Not in _reality,_sir," Harry said slowly, "however, if I'm being entirely honest, I think I could probably do it if I really needed to."

"_Really?_" Dumbledore responded somewhat surprised.

"I _think_ so," Harry said hesitantly, "but I'd probably be a bit hesitant to try it. I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea of potentially splinching myself. I was thinking we'd stick with a simple side-along apparition."

"I agree that that would probably be for the best," Dumbledore said with a grin, "Alright, I think that it would be better if you asked Sirius to meet us at the Three Broomsticks down in Hogsmead. We can take my floo there and then the three of us can apparate to London."

Harry nodded. "Alright."

Dumbledore sat back in his chair and smiled. "I was wondering, Harry, if there was anything else you might be willing to share with me now. Perhaps some details pertaining to the Chamber of Secrets?"

Harry looked thoughtful for a moment and Dumbledore noticed the boy's eyes glazing over slightly and his head cocking a bit to the side.

"I'm not entirely ready to broach that subject yet," Harry said slowly after a moment of silence passed through the room. "However, now that you bring it up, I was wondering if perhaps you would have any ideas as to how we might exonerate Hagrid?"

"Hmm?"

"Well, Hagrid was expelled and his wand was snapped in half because he was implicated in the death of Myrtle when the chamber was opened by Tom Riddle fifty years ago. I'll admit that Hagrid's pet Aragog is a right nasty beast, but he had nothing to do with Myrtle's death. Do you know of any way that we could possibly deal with this situation? Get the Ministry to acknowledge that he had nothing to do with it and allow Hagrid to purchase a new wand?"

Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'm afraid I am not really sure, Harry. However I will try to keep the matter in mind, and if I can come up with anything, I will let you know. I hope you will do the same for me?"

"Of course, sir."

"Now Harry, are you sure that you cannot simply tell me how to find the Chamber? I really do think it is important that we deal with it sooner rather than later. The idea of an ancient, enormous basilisk roaming beneath the school filled with children isn't exactly a pleasant one."

"Well you see... that's the thing, sir. I believe I could work this to our advantage if I handle it properly."

"Oh?"

"I think I can convince the beast to cooperate with us. When Slytherin first built the Chamber it really had nothing to do with letting his basilisk out to eat the muggleborns. The old rumors and legends grossly misrepresent the man and his intentions."

"Is that so?" Dumbledore said, as his eyes twinkled spectacularly.

"Yes, sir. I believe that originally the basilisk was placed there to _protect_ the students from outside invading forces. She's there to help protect the school and it's inhabitants from an attack not to attack the students. It's just that after Slytherin had his falling out with Gryffindor, he never told the others how to get to her. Riddle was able to make her to kill students because he spoke parseltongue, and because he is Slytherin's blood heir, but it was _Riddle's_ doing, not _hers_. I think it's unfair to blame the basilisk and destroy her for following orders when she had no choice in the matter.

"Right now she isn't bonded to anyone, so her loyalties are only to the school. If Riddle was able to get to her again while she's unbonded, he would gain control of her easily, and then we'd be in trouble, but if we can gain her bond first then he won't be able to manipulate her again, even if he comes back."

"Comes back? Are you expecting a situation where Voldemort gains access to the Chamber of Secrets again?" Dumbledore asked in a rather grave tone, and all signs of his trademark twinkle gone.

"It's... possible. It wouldn't be Voldemort in person, but in one potential timeline that I've seen, one of his horcruxes possesses one of the students and that student is the one who reopens the chamber. I intend to prevent any of this from happening, obviously, but I think it would be wise to gain the basilisk's bond before the whole possession thing ever has the chance to happen."

Dumbledore seemed to mull over this information for a moment before nodding his head. "Alright, Harry. What do I need to do to 'gain the basilisk's bond'?"

Harry looked uncomfortable for a moment and looked anywhere but the headmaster's eyes. "Uh... actually, sir, _I_ would have to do it."

Dumbledore's eyebrow rose slightly into his forehead. "Is that so?"

"Only a parselmouth can bond a basilisk," Harry said, while cringing lightly at his headmaster's piercing eyes.

Dumbledore gave Harry a scrutinizing look and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in front of him.

"I have to say, Harry, I am not exactly comfortable with this idea."

"I sort of figured that. But I really do feel that it's necessary. The basilisk could be an incredible asset to us when the war breaks out. She would do a tremendous job of defending the school from an outside deatheater attack, and I would hate to destroy her if it wasn't necessary. I mean, she's practically a founder's relic herself. She was Slytherin's familiar! She's over a millennium old!"

"Hmm..." Dumbledore continued to give Harry a rather hard looking over for a moment before he spoke again. "I will take it under consideration, Harry. Please do not do anything without consulting me first. Alright?"

"Of course," Harry agreed quickly while mentally 'crossing his fingers behind his back.'

Harry already knew that the chances of Dumbledore approving of this were slim to none, but his mind was already set. By the end of the school year, that basilisk was _his_. He just had to get up the courage to actually go down there.

The first meeting was going to be incredibly sensitive and he knew he had to handle it as delicately as possible. There was a very real possibility of things going... badly. It would also be a lengthy process. A single visit would not be enough to form the bond, especially with a beast as old, powerful, and _enormous_ as the basilisk that Harry knew dwelled under the school. He would need to visit her regularly, and the first couple visits would likely involve her requiring him to somehow prove himself worthy of her.

Tom got to skip over most of that since he had the blood of her original master running through his veins. Harry would not be so lucky.

Harry knew that he wanted the basilisk, but he also knew that acquiring her as a second familiar would likely cause his headmaster to become mildly paranoid. There weren't exactly a lot of light wizards who enormous deadly dark creatures as familiars.

It was the primary reason that he was trying to do things as seemingly open with the man as he could afford. If he went sneaking around and doing all of this behind Dumbledore's back, it would only be natural for the man to begin to suspect Harry of becoming a dark wizard himself.

Afterall, the prophecy had said that Harry could be the one to destroy Voldemort – it said nothing at all about Harry being any better. For all Dumbledore knew, it was just one dark lord replacing another.

The two talked for a short while longer, but the conversation died down quickly and Harry departed to go write a letter to Sirius.


	16. Book 1:Staff meeting&Quidditch practice

**Chapter 15: Staff meeting and Quidditch practice**

It was one week before the Halloween feast and McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Snape, and Pamona Sprout had all gathered in Dumbledore's office for the first heads of house meeting of the school year.

As they all took their seats around Dumbledore's large wooden desk the meeting was called to order and they went about all of the standard procedures that they always did during these meetings.

They discussed how the first years were adjusting; what students they thought would benefit from extra guidance; what students had been exceptionally troublesome – the Weasley twins were mentioned a number of times here – and how each of their respective classes were progressing.

Once all of their standard issues were covered Dumbledore sat forward in his chair and folded his hands together on his desk, looking around at his four heads of house.

"I would like to discuss one last thing all of you before we call our meeting to an end," he began and they all nodded and waited for him to continue. "I would like you each to tell me what you think of young Mr. Potter. How is he doing in his classes? How does he seem to be interacting with his fellow students. That sort of thing."

The other professors looked a bit confused by this request – it wasn't exactly common for the headmaster to make a request of this nature about a_specific_ student – but considering Harry Potter's unique circumstances, the request wasn't exactly hard to understand.

"Minerva, you are his head of house, so what do you make of the boy?" Dumbledore continued, focusing his attention on the deputy headmistress.

"Well... he's an absolutely brilliant student," she began with a bit of a shrug. "He's always the first student in his class to manage any spell. It tends to take him no more than three tries before he is able to master any transfiguration. Oftentimes lately, _less_. He tends to spend the practical portion of the class tutoring his friends."

"Really?" Dumbledore said, his eyes sparkling with mirth.

"Yes. He focuses a lot with Mr. Longbottom, but also dedicates quite a bit of attention to Mr. Weasley. Ms. Granger is almost always second in the class to achieve any task, and she seems more than capable of doing it without Mr. Potter's aid. Ms. Granger seems to answer more questions than Mr. Potter does, but whenever I ask him specifically, he always seems to know the answer, and is adequately capable of explaining the theory.

"His written assignments are always very thorough and demonstrate a very deep understanding of the subject matter. Honestly Albus, I would say he could be in class with the third years and probably be having just as easy a time."

"I would concur with Minerva," Filius Flitwick piped in enthusiastically. "Mr. Potter is a true pleasure to teach! He absorbs knowledge like a sponge and is always paying attention and taking notes. He is very dedicated to his studies. Reminds me of his mother in that way."

"He seems very dedicated to his friends," Professor Pamona Sprout said next. "Like Minerva said, he is always helping his friends. Mr. Longbottom was initially very quiet and often rather jumpy in my classes, but he really seems to have come out of his shell, and I think that Mr. Potter's encouragement has played a large role in that.

"Mr. Potter has also stayed after class with me several times to ask extra questions and has even offered to help me tend to the plants. He's such a nice boy, and so enthusiastic about learning. I must say, I'm quite surprised he wasn't sorted into Ravenclaw."

The group was silent for a beat and all eyes fell on the only head of house left who had not yet said anything.

Severus Snape sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. "I don't honestly have a lot to contribute to your _glowing praise_," he said in a mildly sarcastic tone. "The boy is brilliant, I will admit that. I don't think I've ever had a first year who was so talented with potions; he clearly takes after his mother in that regard. I hate to admit it, but he is surprisingly polite and cool-headed, _especially for a Potter_. Several of the other students are frequently trying to bate him into reacting, but they rarely succeed unless they target his _friends._

"As the others have said, he dedicates a lot of his efforts towards assisting his friends in class. I have no doubt that Mr. Longbottom would have blown up the potions lab at least once, and melted a number of pewter cauldrons by now if it weren't for the fact that Potter always insists on partnering with him."

Snape paused for a moment as if he were considering whether or not to add something.

"I do wonder how much of his _brilliance_ can be attributed to his _unique skill_ though," he sneered lightly after a moment.

Minerva arched an eyebrow questioningly.

"Headmaster... is everyone in this room aware of Mr. Potter's _special talent_?" Snape asked.

"Yes, Severus. All of the heads of house have been informed of Mr. Potter's seer's skill," Dumbledore confirmed.

"Yes, well I'm curious if any of you have come to recognize what it looks like when the boy has one of his... what does he call them, oh yes, _gut feelings_."

"What do you mean, Severus?" Pamona Sprout asked with obvious interest alight in her eyes.

"Potter's eyes glaze over or he gets an even more vacant look to his face than he usually has; I've noticed that his head tends to tilt a bit towards one side – his left, usually – that sort of thing."

"Now that you mention it, I saw that just this week in Charms class, right before Mr. Finnigan set his parchment on fire," Flitwick squeaked excitedly. "Mr. Potter seemed to be attempting to get the other lad's attention, but Mr. Finnigan was talking rather animatedly with his partner at the time, and by the time Mr. Potter had gained his attention, the parchment was already going up in flames."

"Yes," Snape drawled, "I've noticed it numerous times when it appeared that Mr. Longbottom was about to make an especially grievous error. The moment Mr. Potter snaps out of his little trance, he instantly acts to put a halt to whatever dunderheaded idiocy his partner is moments away from committing."

"Well, if anything, it sounds like he's using his sight to prevent accidents, I don't see what you were insinuating about Mr. Potter's class performance being attributed to it," Minerva said in a slightly defensive tone.

"I just wonder if his sight might be giving him a heads up on answers as well," Snape said dryly with a shrug. "I also question whether or not it's _fair_ to the other students for someone with his unique _skill_ to play on his house quidditch team."

"That is ridiculous!" Minerva instantly spat.

"I was just suggesting that his ability could perhaps give him an unfair advantage over the members of the opposing teams. Especially given the position of _seeker_," Snape drawled.

"Hah! You're one to go spouting about _fairness_, Severus," Minerva said while glaring at the Potions Master through narrowed eyes.

"What exactly are you insinuating?"

"Enough, enough!" Dumbledore interrupted, raising his hands and bringing about silence. He turned his focus back on Snape, "If there is ever anything that would indicate the possibility that Mr. Potter is using his seer's sight in some form of academic cheating then we can revisit the matter at that time, but until any such evidence come forth, we will move on.

"Now, I believe everyone knows that Mr. Potter came to me at the beginning of the school year, requesting he be given a few special courses. Minerva, Fillius; you both said you would observe him and his progress before you made a final decision on whether or not to grant his request. What are your feelings on the matter at the moment?"

"Mr. Potter requested I assist him in the animagus transformation," Minerva began, "and initially I was obviously skeptical that anyone so young would have any hope for performing such a transfiguration. Afterall, most animagus don't accomplish their first transformation until after they've completed their NEWTs.

"Now... well, now I must admit that I am much less skeptical. I'm willing to begin teaching the boy some of the theory during the later half of next term. I want to wait until we have covered a few other fundamentals in class, but once I'm convinced he has a solid understanding of those, we will begin with some introductory instruction.

"He has told me that he already _knows_ that he has an animagus form, although he has not told me what it is. I have also witnessed him demonstrating an aptitude for wandless magic, so I doubt he will have significant trouble grasping the steps necessary to complete the transformation.

"I do not intend, however, to allow him to try the actual transformation until next year at some point. I still have my doubts as to whether a twelve year old body can properly handle the transformation, but I am willing to allow him to attempt it at some point."

Dumbledore nodded and turned his focus to professor Flitwick. "Fillius?"

"I was asked to consider teaching the boy dueling and defense techniques. Initially, the idea of trying to teach a protego to an eleven year old seemed downright comical, but I must admit, after observing the boy in class, I think it's entirely possible that he could pull it off!

"Just the same, I still wish to wait until his second year. I would like to ensure a stronger foundation and would like for the boy to focus on his first year studies before we overburden him with extra lessons," Professor Flitwick finished.

Dumbledore nodded again and turned to Snape. "Severus? How are your lessons with Mr. Potter progressing?"

"Severus is teaching him a class?" Pamona asked in surprised, "is Mr. Potter getting extra potions lessons?"

"No, Potter requested that I help him with the mind arts. He wished to learn Occlumency," Snape drawled in a seemingly disinterested voice.

"Teaching an eleven year old, Occlumency?" Pamona exclaimed. "Most full-grown adults don't even have the aptitude for it! I have trouble imagining that anyone so young could even begin to grasp the subject!"

"Well, Potter is one of the few who can, it would appear. As a matter of fact, he had already been practicing the necessary memory sorting for years. He said it was the only way he could keep track of his visions and make sense of it all. At one point he even admitted his own fears and suspicions that he would have lost his mind years ago if he had not taken up the practice."

The other professors in the room exchanged slightly concerned looks as Snape told them this.

"As much as I am loathe to admit it, Potter is shaping up to be an exceptional occlumense. His shields are still fairly weak, but the progress on his mindscape is very impressive. His memories are well sorted and he is already beginning to construct his defenses around his more sensitive knowledge. He seems to have a group of memories that he has put extra protections in place around and has worked very diligently over the last month and a half of lessons to keep them from me," Snape said with an eye roll and a sneer.

"Everyone appreciates some level of privacy, Severus," Dumbledore said.

"Yes, I'm sure that's all it is," Snape sneered with a rather sarcastic tone. He paused a moment before sighing lightly, "I must say that I agree with Pamona on one thing. I too, am surprised the boy did not end up in Ravenclaw. His comprehension of advanced magical theory is far beyond that of his peers, and far beyond that of any other _Gryffindor_ I have ever had the annoyance of having to teach."

Minerva made an annoyed scoff-like noise under her breath.

"The boy _wants_ to learn. From what I have seen of his mind from our sessions, it appears it has been a trend in his life for years. His entire life seems to revolve around the desire to improve himself and gain as much knowledge about as many things as he can manage. A very _Ravenclaw_ mentality."

A thoughtful look crossed Dumbledore's face for a moment before his beard twitched from a hidden smile. "I wonder..." he mused quietly before standing up and walking across the room to the motionless sorting hat, which was resting on a shelf. "Excuse me, hat?" Dumbledore began. A second passed before the seemingly inanimate object suddenly came to life.

"Yes, Headmaster?" the hat said through a rip in it's folds.

"Hat, I am curious about one of the students you sorted this year."

"You know I cannot give out any personal information on the students, headmaster. I was created to sort, not to intrude upon their privacy," the hat grumbled in annoyance.

"Yes, yes, of course. I was just curious about your choice to sort Mr. Harry Potter into Gryffindor. Was it an easy decision?"

"Hmmm... well, it really wasn't _my_ decision at all, actually," the hat said in a somewhat amused tone.

"What do you mean by that, exactly?" Dumbledore asked curiously.

"The boy could have easily gone to any of the houses, although I never honestly considered putting him into Hufflepuff. My first inclination was to place him in Ravenclaw, but after that I would have placed him into Slytherin. In the end, it was he who chose to go to Gryffindor."

The gathered professors all looked a bit surprised by this revelation.

"Do you often leave the decision up to the students?" Pamona Sprout asked.

"Hmm... no, but most students don't think to ask – opting to simply allow me to make the decision for them. Mr. Potter was quite direct in his request."

"Did he say why he requested Gryffindor?" Flitwick asked with obvious curiosity, having just learned that he had only narrowly missed out on having Mr. Potter in his own house.

"He said he had plans and that being anywhere outside of Gryffindor would mess them up. That is all I will tell you on the matter." With that, the hat fell to silence and returned to in inanimate state.

The group shared a look and Dumbledore returned the hat to the shelf.

"Interesting..." Dumbledore said quietly.

"What do you suppose it means?" Minerva asked, somewhat nervously.

"I do not know. Mr. Potter is a boy beyond his years, I think we can all agree on that. Given his unique ability and situation, it makes sense for him to tend towards making distant plans. What, being in your house specifically has to do with them is something that only Mr. Potter himself could answer."

"You've been meeting with him as well," Minerva stated, giving the headmaster a pointed look, "have you learned anything of interest?"

"Quite a bit, actually... none of it that I'm entirely ready to disclose, however. I do apologize. I would ask that you all keep your eye on the boy for me, though. If any of you notice anything especially out of the ordinary, I would appreciate it if you would let me know."

The group all nodded, but Flitwick looked extra thoughtful.

"You know, now that you mention it, Albus, there is something quite interesting I've noticed Mr. Potter doing lately," Flitwick said, garnering the attention of all of his colleagues.

"Oh?"

"Yes, have any of you heard of a muggle thing called... what was it... uh, carrot-something. It seems to be some form of hand-to-hand combat.

"Karate?" Snape asked, cocking a single eyebrow.

"Ah, yes! That's it! Apparently Mr. Potter studied it growing up and does some sort of daily exercise routine each morning. Some of the other students saw him doing it at some point and convinced him to teach some of them as well. He's been holding weekly classes."

"Mr. Potter is teaching a 'class' on _fighting_?" Minerva asked, aghast.

"Oh, it really is quite a spectacle to watch!" Flitwick exclaimed excitedly. "You really must witness it yourself. Mr. Potter also seems to have quite a talent for teaching. I believe he holds his classes each Tuesday and Sunday an hour or so before dinner. He's been doing it on the grounds not far from Hagrid's hut."

Minerva looked skeptical and nodded her head curtly. "I'll have to pay this 'class' a visit. Out of curiosity, Fillius, who all has been attending it?"

"Oh that's one of the most impressive things! It's quite a diverse group. In addition to Mr. Potter's group of friends and his dorm mates, there are also two Ravenclaws, one Hufflepuff student, and two_Slytherin_boys!"

"Learning muggle karate?" Snape said, apparently quite surprised by this. "Which two?"

"1st year Zabini and a 3rd year – Fleet."

"Fleet? Are you sure?"

"Yes, quite! He seems really quite taken with it. Why, just yesterday in the hall I saw him speaking with Mr. Flint. Apparently he had scheduled their next Quidditch practice at the same time as Mr. Potter's class on Sunday and Mr. Fleet was trying to convince Mr. Flint to schedule it to a different time so he wouldn't have to miss his _carrot-tay_ lesson. Really something, don't you think?"

One of Snape's eyebrows rose quite high into his forehead but all the verbal response he gave was a slightly surprised "Hmh" sort of noise.

The meeting began to wind down quickly and within a few more minutes time, the professors all departed from the headmaster's office and each went their separate ways.

– – –

"Come on you slackers! Our first match is only a month away and we've only got so much time to whip our new Seeker into shape!" Oliver Wood called out to the group of gathered Gryffindor Quidditch players.

The twins, and Alicia were gathered around Harry, admiring the Nimbus 2001 broom he had been gifted by his head of house.

After another minute of scolding by their captain, the group dispersed, each mounted their own brooms and took off into the air.

This was only the second time Harry was meeting for a Quidditch practice, and only the first one with the whole team. Wood had thought it important to meet with Harry alone the first time to explain the mechanics of the game, and see what Harry was capable of on his broom.

The practice quickly went into full swing with the twins, who were playing the beaters positions, practicing hitting a bludger back and forth between the two of them, and the team's chashers practicing by shooting the quaffle at Wood.

Wood had released the snitch early on and told Harry to practice circling the pitch searching for the tiny golden ball. He figured Harry would need some experience hunting for the illusive little object, while the pitch was occupied by the action of an active game.

After blocking a shot from Angelina, Wood glanced up in Harry's direction to witness the very moment the young boy caught the snitch for the first time that night. He was honestly quite surprised that Harry had nabbed it so quickly. They had only been practicing for about fifteen minutes at that point, but he chalked it up to luck. Harry released the tiny fluttering ball and did a ring around the pitch to lose track of the ball before starting the whole process over again.

About 10 minutes later Wood glanced up again at his seeker to see Harry sitting on his broom far above the pitch with his head bent forward and his eyes _closed!_ He had a look of pure concentration and focus on his face, but the fact that he was clearly _not_ looking for the snitch irritated Wood quite a bit.

He was a breath away from calling a pause on the chaser's practice and going up to see what the devil Harry was up to when the young man's head suddenly popped up and he pulled his broom hard to the left and shot out like lightening.

Harry took a sharp dive down towards the ground, pulled a hard right before doing a tight corkscrew and then reaching out with his hand and grabbing a tiny golden glint from the sky.

"How the bloody hell..." Wood whispered in awe and confusion.

Before practice came to an end an hour and a half later, Harry had caught the snitch an additional four times.

Wood was speechless.

"Harry? Can I have a word?" he called out as the rest of the team began to make their way into the locker rooms to change.

"Sure thing, Ollie," Harry said with a warm smile as he quickly jogged over to him.

"Harry, I... How did... I mean... you... how..." Wood stuttered out as Harry came to stand before him.

Harry just grinned and put his hand up to halt Wood's ramblings. "Sorry, Ollie – for some reason I thought that McGonagall would have told you... honestly, I'm a bit surprised that they're even letting me play. I figured that there would be concerns about whether or not it was fair letting someone with my talent play an organized sport."

"You're talent?" Wood asked while arching an eyebrow in confusion.

"Don't go spreading it around, because I really don't want a lot of people to know, but I'm a seer. It actually runs in my family, but it's skipped a few generations, so I'm the first Potter to be born with it in quite a while."

"A seer!" Wood exclaimed, stunned.

"Yeah," Harry said, nodding and giving his captain a sheepish grin.

"Wait... is that how you managed to catch the snitch so damn many times? Because that was both brilliant and absolutely insane! I've never seen someone who's able to find the bloody little menace so quickly!"

Harry grinned and shrugged. "Yeah, it's actually pretty hard to do... the snitch is a pretty unpredictable little thing, but I spent the last couple hours practicing it. I think I've got a pretty good handle on pinpointing it's course."

"Bloody hell... and McGonagall knows you can do this?"

"She knows I'm a seer," Harry said with a shrug. "Even _I_ wasn't positive I could manage a strong enough control on my day premonitions to see where to find the snitch, so I can't exactly guarantee that she realizes that I can use my sight in quidditch."

Wood looked lost in deep thought for a moment as he began to pace back and forth in front of Harry.

"This could be incredible for us... But we have to handle it delicately... Obviously we can't have you catching the snitch fifteen minutes into every game. People would start to get suspicious, plus... I mean, where's the fun in a fifteen minute game of Quidditch?" Wood said, finally stopping in his pacing and looking over at Harry with a smirk.

Harry chuckled back and shrugged.

"Okay... okay, so we get make a gameplan. We use this to our advantage. Harry, can you tell... with your seer's uh... thing – can you see when the other team might manage to catch the snitch?"

"Most of the time, yeah," Harry said nodding.

"Okay, well, if there's ever a time that you think the other team is going to catch it soon, then you go after it right away. I'll have to devise a plan for what specific circumstances you should hold off during, and what other circumstances you should go after it... Can you find it just about any time you need to?"

"Not _any_ time..." Harry said, hesitantly.

"Well, you can still find it a hell of a lot faster than a normal person could. This has some seriously amazing potential Harry. This is incredible!"

"You really think it's alright? I mean... if we're being honest here, it's probably rather unfair..."

"Screw that man! This is an incredible opportunity and I'm not about to let it slip through my fingers! Let's meet, just you and me, tomorrow night. I want to grill you on the details of how this seer's thing of yours works, and the two of us can come up with some gameplans. Is that alright with you?"

Harry looked rather hesitant for a moment before shrugging and giving Wood a grin. "Sure, Ollie. No problem."


	17. Book 1: And another one bites the dust

**Chapter 16: And another one bites the dust**

A sudden _crack_ echoed through the air in the small empty park that sat a block down from Grimmauld Place, London. Where once, there was nothing, now stood two men and a small boy who looked quite disoriented.

"You all right, pup?" Sirius asked, looking down at the raven-haired boy beside him.

Harry shook to clear his head and then looked up at his godfather and smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine. That's the first time I've ever actually experienced that outside of one of my visions."

"Im curious Harry – how does it compare? Experiencing the real thing versus your visions?" Dumbledore said as he brushed down his robes and focused on the two people beside him.

Harry looked thoughtful for a moment before shrugging. "It's basically the same. My mind is used to the idea, but my body needs to learn what it actually feels like."

"Well, shall we?" Sirius asked, motioning his hand in the direction of his families ancestral home. "Number 12 is just a block down this way. Remus and I were here a few days ago to check the place out. It's been uninhabited for more than a decade and the magic has gone a bit wild. I wanted to make sure it would be possible to enter the blasted place without getting hexed out right. I'm pretty confident that we should be able to make our way through most of the house without too much trouble... just... well, don't touch anything, alright Harry?"

"No problem. Did you encounter Kreacher when you were hear earlier?"

Sirius grimaced, "Unfortunately... yes. Now, Harry, you have to realize that Kreacher has been here in this house, all alone, for the last decade. He's gone a bit _mad_, and he wasn't exactly a pleasant thing to be around when I lived here as a boy. I'd say he's even _worse_ now. He'll likely say some rather nasty things and I'd ask that you do your best to not listen to any of it. Also, there's a painting of my _dear old mother_ on the wall in the entryway and she's probably even more foul and nasty than Kreacher... not to mention how _loud_ the mad old hag can scream –"

"It's alright, Sirius. I know what to expect," Harry said with a reassuring smile.

Sirius chuckled and shook his head. "I guess you would. Alright pup, here we are," Sirius motioned towards the house that stood before them. He climbed the steps to the front door and tapped his newly acquired wand on the doorknob. They could hear as it unlocked and a moment later Sirius had the door open and took a few tentative steps inside.

The group slowly went inside. Sirius turned back to Dumbledore and Harry and rose a single finger to his lips to indicate that they be quiet. The group crept their way to the bottom of the stairs and quickly ascended to the first floor.

Sirius turned back to Harry, "Alright pup, where from here? This is your show."

Harry nodded his head. "Kreacher!" he called out and a moment later a loud _POP_ sounded and there, standing before them was an absolutely horrendous looking sight.

A decrepit old house elf with many folds of wrinkly skin, and white hairs tufting out of his sagging bat-like ears, was standing there, muttering and glaring at the two men and young boy.

"The blood traitor has returned and he brings more filthy guests. Oh what would Mistress say if she could see her beloved home now," the little house elf croaked.

"Kreacher, shut up," Sirius groaned.

Harry shot his godfather a pleading glance for a moment before turning his focus on the wrinkled creature before him.

"Kreacher, my name is Harry Potter and I've come hoping to help you with something."

Kreacher narrowed his enormous tennis-ball sized eyes on the boy and muttered something about an undersized, half-blood whelp under his breath, but Harry pressed on.

"Kreacher, I have a special gift that lets me see things that happened long ago, and things that still have yet to happen. Many years ago, I had a vision about the day that Master Regulus asked you to take him to a cave and help him retrieve a locket."

The house elf's mutterings stopped instantly and his eyes grew as wide a dinner plates.

"Master Regulus asked you to destroy the locket, didn't he? But you couldn't do it."

The elf's eyes instantly filled with tears and he began pulling frantically on his ears and wailing loudly. Before Harry could do anything to stop it, the wrinkled little creature was baning his head against the wall, going on about failing his great master Regulus and being a bad, bad, house elf.

"Sirius, order him to stop!" Harry hissed.

"Kreacher! Stop that right this instant. You are not allowed to punish yourself right now!" Sirius bellowed quickly.

The elf stopped but still had a rather firm grip on his own ears and his arms and hands were twitching with the desire to continue.

"Kreacher," Harry quickly began again, "I'm here to offer my assistance. I know how to destroy the locket. Will you allow us to help you destroy it? We only wish to fulfill Master Regulus's dying wish, and help you complete the task he gave you. Can you bring me the locket?"

The house elf looked up at the young boy with what could only be described as awe, for a moment before quickly nodding his head and disappearing in a soft pop. He reappeared an instant later and hesitantly held out a shaky, wrinkled, old hand, holding a locket.

Harry glanced over to Sirius, "Uh, what would be the best room to do this in? Somewhere with a table or something would be best and uh... preferable not surrounded by a bunch of cursed objects."

Sirius looked thoughtful for a moment. "Kitchen," he said finally with a nod.

Harry turned back to the house elf, "Take it down to the kitchen, Kreacher. We'll be right there."

The elf nodded and quickly disappeared with another soft _pop._

The three wizards made their way back down the stairs, tip-toed past the portrait of Walburga Black, and then down further and into the kitchen.

Kreacher was already waiting there for them. The locket was sitting on the table and the elf was wringing his hands anxiously and looking up at Harry with hopeful expectant eyes.

Harry nodded to Professor Dumbledore and the old wizard walked over to the table and conjured a small basin with a flick of his wand. He then reached into a pocket of his robes and brought out a vial of dark translucent liquid, which he poured into the basin.

Sirius eyed the liquid and gave the other two a questioning glance.

"It's basilisk venom," Harry explained as he stepped forward and reached for the locket. "Alright, I'm going to speak to it to open it. Just to help prepare you for what's coming, once the locket is opened, we'll be able to see a pair of glowing red eyes in the two windows. It'll probably try to speak to us, and will most likely be quite loud.

"Since the only one here that it has any knowledge of is Kreacher, it'll probably speak to you the most," Harry said, turning to the fidgeting house elf. "You _must not_ listen to it Kreacher. It speaks lies. As soon as I've got it open, I'm going to throw it into the basin. It should only take a few seconds for the venom to destroy the dark magic inside the locket."

Harry took a deep breath and looked around the room one more time. "Are we ready for this?"

"Harry, perhaps Dumbledore or I should be the one to place the locket into the Venom. I can't say I'm terribly fond of the idea of you getting too close to that stuff – _or_ the locket," Sirius said.

"I need to do this fast. As soon as I get it open, I'm tossing it in," Harry said.

Sirius sighed but conceded.

Harry held the locket in his hand and focused on the _S_ and the image of a snake that adorned it and spoke, _§Open§._

A tiny _click_ sounded and the locket popped open, instantly revealing the image of two closed eyes. They began to open slowly, revealing glowing red irises that quickly darted around the room, taking in it's surroundings. A shrill, high pitched voice began to ring out, but before even a single word could be discerned Harry had dropped the trinket into the basin of basilisk venom.

The voice instantly began to scream and wail, and Harry was sure he heard it calling out to Kreacher a few times, but none of it was clearly discernible.

After a tense few moments the charged atmosphere of the room dissipated and the group was left in eerie silence.

"Bloody hell," Sirius whispered a moment later. He turned to Harry and ran an exasperated hand through his shoulder-length hair. "Look, pup, I know you said that this was sort of a need-to-know situation, but what in the name of Merlin was that blasted thing?"

"Let's just say that it was part of a really dark ritual that Voldie did a long time ago to try and make himself immortal." Harry turned his attention on the house elf who was currently peering into the basin at the locket with wide eyes.

"Sirius?" Harry said, regaining his godfather's attention.

"Yes, pup?"

"Can you order Kreacher to never talk about this with anyone under any circumstances? We need to make sure that there are no loopholes. _No one_ can ever know about this locket."

Sirius nodded, "You got it Harry." He turned to the house elf who still looked as if he were about to cry from pure joy and began, "Kreacher, I'm ordering you to never disclose what just happened with anyone outside of this room, _ever._ No one else can ever know about this locket, or what we did here today, is that understood?"

Kreacher looked up somewhat dumbly for a moment before nodding his head vigorously. "Yes master. Kreacher won't tell anyone ever."

Dumbledore took the vial he had emptied earlier and then with a flick of his wand he siphoned the contents of the basin back into the vial, leaving only the locket behind.

"Kreacher?" Harry began in a kind voice. The house elf looked back up at the boy with wide grateful eyes, "the evil thing in the locket that Master Regulus wanted destroyed is gone now. Would it be alright if we kept the locket?"

The house elf seemed to fight an internal battle for the briefest of moments. Sirius looked at Harry incredulously as if he couldn't even begin to fathom why his godson would both to ask the elf for _permission_ to keep the locket, but he had promised Harry earlier that he would follow his lead on any interactions with the house elf, so he held his tongue.

Kreacher nodded his head a moment later. "Yes, Mr. Harry Potter sir may keep the locket. Mr. Harry Potter has done Kreacher a great favor and Kreacher will forever be thankful," the elf concluded with a bow so low that his nose touched the floor.

Sirius's eyes widened in surprise at the respect his family's decrepit old elf was showing to his godson.

"Thank you Kreacher," Harry said, returning a small bow. "Thank you so much for your help in this matter. Master Regulus would be proud of you."

The elf stood back up and his eyes welled up with tears as he nodded is over-sized head.

Dumbledore collected the locket and wrapped it up in a small handkerchief before placing it into one of the pockets of his robes and then banishing the conjured basin.

Harry bade farewell to the elf, and the three wizards left the house and returned to the deserted section of park before apparating back to Hogsmead.

Once the three had reappeared at the apparition point in the small courtyard behind the Three Broomsticks Harry turned to his godfather with a large grin on his face.

"Thanks for all your help, Sirius!" he said.

Sirius just chuckled at his godson's enthusiasm and shrugged. "No need to thank me, all I did was unlock the front door. You and Dumbledore did all the work." Sirius sighed and looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know, it's still quite a shock for me to think that Reg wised up and actually had the gall to go against You-know-who in the end. Real shame it got him killed. He really was a good kid, once upon a time."

"He was a good man, he just followed the wrong person. At least he did what was right in the end," Harry said kindly.

Sirius looked down at Harry and shot him a critical eye for a moment and smirked. "Kid, you really need to learn how to act like an eleven year old. You sound way too old when you start talking like that."

Harry just smiled and gave an unapologetic shrug. "I'm glad I got to see you again, Sirius."

"Me too pup," Sirius said as he pulled Harry into a quick hug. "I'll see you for the holidays, right?"

"Of course," Harry said as if it was silly to even ask.

"Well, I suppose it's time that Harry and I should be getting back up to the school," Dumbledore said. "Thank you again for your assistance in this matter, Sirius."

"No problem, and thank you too, Dumbledore. Look after my pup for me, will you?"

"As always," Dumbledore said with a slight nod of his head and a twinkle to his eyes.

"Okay," Sirius said heaving a slightly sad sigh. "I'll see ya later Harry."

"Bye Sirius," Harry said with a sad smile.

Sirius nodded and a moment later he disappeared with a loud _Crack!_

Harry looked to Dumbledore and the two turned and reentered the Three Broomsticks to use Madam Rosmerta's floo back to the castle.

– – –

Halloween arrived and Harry couldn't help but feel anxious all day. It didn't help at all that he had some rather nasty dreams the night before.

As was some sort of morbid, mandatory, ritual, he had dreamt about his parent's murder, and the fateful incident that had lead to the scar on his forehead. As if reliving the worst night of his life so far wasn't bad enough, he had then progressed into a rather horrific vision of a particularly gruesome battle that had taken place during what would be his seventh year at Hogwarts.

He and a group of fighters had been cornered and captured during a battle. During the brief, subsequent imprisonment, Harry had been held under the curciatis curse off and on for several hours. The deatheaters who had him were rather ignorant of exactly _who_they had captured thanks to the fact that he was in disguise. Additionally fortunate was the fact that they were pretty far down on the chain of command, so they never summoned Voldemort himself. Thanks to this, an opportunity to escape arose, and Harry had managed to get away, along with most of the others – or at least, most of the ones that hadn't been killed already. The entire vision had left Harry feeling ill and shaky and with absolutely _no_ appetite.

Hermione noticed that Harry seemed extremely _off_ that morning, but he hadn't wanted to discuss it during their exercise routine that morning. He had even remained mostly silent during his jog with Addy – a time he was usually rather chatty with his familiar. Harry had told Hermione once that he often spent his morning jog telling his snake about what visions he had the previous night and that having a third party to talk to helped him sort his dreams and memories better.

Hermione realized that she had gotten so used to hearing Harry 'hiss' his way through his morning jog, that seeing him do it in silence was quite disconcerting.

This fact was almost comical considering how disconcerting it had originally been in the beginning to hear him speaking parseltongue at all.

Breakfast and Lunch were rather subdued affairs as well – so much so that even Ron noticed. Ron asked Hermione at one point if she knew what was up with Harry since she seemed to spend so much extra time with him. She really didn't know, but she did remind Ron that this was the anniversary of the night that Harry's parents were killed, and that it seemed logical that it would leave him feeling bothered.

Ron seemed to accept this as a very reasonable explanation and went about the rest of the day giving Harry a wide berth.

Despite what she had told Ron, Hermione had the distinct impression that there was something _more_ bothering Harry, but didn't think Harry was ready to actually talk about it.

The Gryffindors had Charms that afternoon before dinner and would be learning the levitation spell. Harry, as was now very normal and entirely expected among his classmates, was the first one to successfully perform the spell. In fact, he did it flawlessly on his first try. Hermione got it right almost as quickly as Harry did, and the two of them spent a good fifteen minutes making their feather's do a sort of dance in the air above them. Professor Flitwick was exceedingly impressed and gave them each 10 points for the display.

Ron, in contrast, was having a fair amount of trouble and getting quite frustrated as he watched his friends performing the spell with such ease. His frustration only grew when Nevile was able to get his feather to levitate about six inches off the table, and Ron still hadn't managed to get his feather to so much as _twitch_.

Hermione tried to correct Ron's pronunciation and wand movement, but that really only seemed to irritate him further.

While focused on helping Nevile with his progress, Harry felt his familiar gut twisting, hair-on-the-back-of-his-neck, sensation and spun around just in time to watch as Seamus set his feather on fire. Harry chuckled and sighed. It made him wonder if a fire salamander's whisker was the magical core to Seamus's wand. It seemed no matter what the boy did, he always managed to set something on fire...

Ron was still grumbling at the end of class and stormed out with Seamus and Dean in tow.

Harry lingered with Hermione as she packed up her books, wondering to himself how the rest of the day would pan out. This was one of those more _significant_ days that Harry had seen numerous times, in numerous different variations and incarnations over the years.

He and Hermione were just about caught up with Ron, Seamus, and Dean when they heard Ron saying "It's Levioh-SAH, not Levi-oh-suh," in a snide, mocking tone. "Bloody bossy know-it-all. I can't understand how Harry can stand to spend so much time around her."

Harry felt Hermione stiffen beside him and spun around to face her just in time to see her eyes begin to well up with unshed tears, and her bottom lip begin to quiver. She instantly looked away, trying to divert her reaction away from Harry's notice.

He knew he had to act fast, before she ran off, so he quickly grabbed a hold of her upper arm and dragged her into the nearest empty classroom.

Hermione was so bewildered by Harry's sudden actions that she had almost been distracted from the hurtful thing her supposed _friend_ had just said about her.

Harry spun her around so that she was facing him and held both of her shoulders in his hands.

"'Mione, look at me," he said as Hermione ducked her head and pulled her lower lip between her teeth. "Look at me, 'Mione, I mean it," Harry said again.

Hesitantly, Hermione rose her head back up and tried to give Harry a neutral look. She didn't want to show any weakness. She didn't want to show how much Ron's words had hurt.

"I'm so sorry that you had to hear something as stupid and rude as that," Harry said in a surprisingly soft and apologetic voice. "Ron was being a stupid, jealous, irrational git, and if he took a moment to pull his head out from his arse, he'd see how cruel he was for saying anything like that.

"You weren't being bossy or acting like a know-it-all, you were just trying to help your friend, but Ron was too frustrated and idiotic to notice. He was being a stupid prat and you shouldn't listen to a thing he said, because he's wrong. _I_think that you're absolutely _brilliant._"

Hermione released her lower lip from between her teeth and it quivered for a moment before she sucked in a calming breath and slowly released it.

Harry gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze and shot her a soft, reassuring smile.

"I'm _never_ going to get sick of spending time with you. _I will never get sick of you._ Ron is going to be a prat sometimes, and he'll be okay some other times. Merlin! Sometimes I actually wonder if he's even worth the effort, because he's going to make some pretty monumental mistakes over the next few years, but _you're_ always going to stand by me, and help me, and be my friend."

Hermione locked eyes with Harry and stood there giving him a piercing analytical gaze for several seconds. Finally her face softened and she smiled.

"Thank you Harry," she said softly.

"No problem. Just, promise me one thing, okay?

"Alright... what?"

"Promise me that you won't go hiding in the bathroom tonight."

Hermione arched an eyebrow and looked at him curiously. "What?"

"Something is going to happen tonight. Something bad. Promise me that you'll stay in the Great Hall during the feast. Okay?"

"What's going to happen?" Hermione said in a worried, conspiratorial, whisper as she leaned in closer to him.

"You know how I mentioned that Quirrell's dangerous and it has something to do with the object that Fluffy is guarding?"

Hermione's eyes went wide and she nodded. "Yes?"

"He's going to try and steal it tonight. He won't succeed – not even close – but he's going to _try_. He's going to create a _diversion_ before he goes after it. It's that _diversion_ is going to pose the danger."

"Harry, you should tell someone!"

"I will. I'm actually going to go and tell someone right after this, but I want to make sure that you're going to be safe, first. So do you promise me that you'll go straight to the great hall and stay there?"

"I promise," she said nodding.

"Okay, good. I'll be along real soon, I just need to go talk with someone first. It'll probably take about a half hour before we're done talking, so I'll be a bit late to the feast."

"You'll come straight to the great all afterwards, right? You're not going to run off and try to do something about this diversion thing, yourself, are you?" Hermione asked, shooting Harry a suspicious narrow glare.

Harry gave her a crooked grin and shrugged. "Don't worry about me, Hermione. I've got this covered."

"Harry..." Hermione said in a warning growl.

"Don't worry. I'll be fine, I swear.

Hermione huffed and shook her head in exasperation. "Fine. I'll see you soon, right?"

"Right."

She motioned to turn around but stopped and pulled her lower lip between her teeth again for a moment.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for earlier."

"I meant every word of it. You're brilliant Hermione, and you're a wonderful friend. Never forget that.

She blushed and smiled before turning and leaving the classroom.


	18. Book 1: To Battle a Troll

**Chapter 17: To Battle a Troll**

A gentle rapping came at his office door and Severus Snape grumbled in frustration as he set down his quill and glared disdainfully at the door before answering.

"Come in," he called out curtly.

"Professor Snape?" Harry said as he pushed the door open and stuck his head through.

"Potter? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be heading to the Great Hall? The Halloween feast will be starting in less than a half hour."

"I'm not much one for celebrating on this day, sir. Besides, I needed to take care of something before I could go to dinner. Can I come in and speak with you?"

Snape faltered for a moment before giving a curt nod. "Fine, but make it quick. I was hoping to get the last of these essays graded before leaving for the feast. This better be important," Snape said as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, staring at the small boy impatiently.

"It is important sir, trust me. Something is going to happen tonight."

"Could you possibly be more vague, Potter?" Snape sneered sarcastically.

"It's Quirrell. He's going to try and steal the stone tonight."

Snape's interest was suddenly peaked as he sat up straighter and rose his eyebrows questioningly. "Is that so?"

"Yes, sir."

"I take it that this is from one of your visions?"

"Yes," Harry nodded. "Quirrell is going to try and create a distraction that will bring all of the teachers down into the dungeons so that he can go up to the third floor and try to get past Fluffy."

Snape blinked. "Fluffy?"

"Hagrid's three-headed dog."

"That beast has a name?"

"It does belong to Hagrid and Hagrid does tend to give his creatures names," Harry said with a small grin and a shrug as if that were enough to explain everything.

Snape rolled his eyes and shook his head. "What type of diversion, exactly?"

"He's going to release a mountain troll inside the school."

Snape's eyes widened considerably.

"_Inside the school?_ He's going to release a troll _inside the school_," he echoed, incredulously.

"Yes, sir. He's going to interrupt the feast and say that a troll is in the dungeons. Unfortunately Quirrell is as incompetent as he is reckless. The troll will end up lost on the 2nd floor after trying to follow Quirrell back to the Great Hall from where he left it in the dungeons. By the time Quirrell makes his announcement in the Great Hall the troll will be impeding the path from the great hall to the Hufflepuff common room. _Fortunately,_since the teachers will all end up around the 2nd and 3rd floors to deal with the troll, Quirrell won't be able to sneak into the 3rd floor corridor to go after the stone.

"_Unfortunately_ it is likely that some students will encounter it at some point. In many of my older visions, the troll was attracted to the sound of someone crying in the girls bathroom, however I've taken steps to make sure that doesn't happen. Without that distraction, the troll will head straight towards the left-side corridor on the 2nd floor and encounter a group of Hufflepuffs leaving the great hall."

Snape blinked, taking in everything he'd just heard. "Have you told the headmaster this yet?"

"No, sir. You're the first I've told."

Snape arched a surprised eyebrow and gave Harry a skeptical look. "And why exactly is that?"

"You can go after Quirrell. He knows you're already suspicious of him so it won't seem odd if you go straight after him the moment he comes into the great hall screaming about a troll. If Dumbledore and the others suddenly appear to be suspicious of him he might realize that something is going on.

"At the moment, Quirrell is completely ignorant to my seer's abilities and I'm hoping to keep it that way. If he realizes that I know what he's up to he'll change his plans and then I'll have to wait until my visions update to get an idea of what's going on and I won't be as prepared."

"And what exactly are his plans?"

"He wants the stone, but not for himself."

"For _whom_ than?"

"Can you think of no one who might need it?"

"Do not be cryptic with me, Potter. I want a straight answer."

"Voldemort, sir. Quirrell is trying to steal the stone so that Voldemort can regain a body and return to his full strength."

Snape's eyes went wide as saucers and he somehow managed to go even more white than his usual pallor complexion.

"Quirrell is a servant of the dark lord?" Snape hissed in disbelief.

"He's more than a servant. He's a host."

"A host? What the devil are you suggesting?"

Harry shook his head. "It's rather complicated and we're running out of time. The feast will be beginning soon and we both still need to get into position. After Quirrell runs into the Great Hall tell Dumbledore to send some teachers to the second floor, not the dungeons, and see if you can convince him to keep the students in the great hall, instead of sending them to their common rooms. They'll be much safer if they just stay put."

Snape eyed Harry with a piercing gaze for a moment before shaking his head and huffing out a breath.

"Fine, but I expect a more thorough explanation at our next Occlumency lesson."

"Alright, sir. Let's go. We're cutting it close."

– – –

"Are you alright, Hermione?" Nevile asked hesitantly as he watched the rather fidgety and anxious looking girl looking around the Great Hall.

"Hmm?" she responded in a rather distracted tone. She saw the doors to the Great Hall opening and held her breath, hoping to see Harry walking through the doors. She whimpered a bit and groaned in disappointment as the dark, billowy figure of Professor Snape walked through them instead and made his way down towards the head table.

"Hermione?" Nevile prodded.

"Huh? What is it, Nev?"

"Are you alright?"

"I... I'm just looking for Harry."

"You seem worried... is something going on?"

Hermione finally pulled her eyes away from the entrance to the Great Hall and looked at Nevile with an apologetic smile. "Sorry... I am, actually. Harry said something that's got me on edge."

"What is it?"

"It sounded like something bad was going to happen tonight. He said he was going to tell a teacher, but that he'd come back afterwards."

"Well, then he must still be telling one of the professors."

"But they're all _here_ now."

"Quirrell's not here," Nevile pointed out.

Hermione rolled her eyes, "Well, obviously Harry's not going to Quirrell to warn him that Quirrell is... oh... oh no."

"What?"

"I think Harry might be trying to stop Quirrell on his own!"

"Huh?"

"All of the teachers are _here!_ There's no one left that Harry could be warning! Harry told me that the problem that's going to happen tonight is going to be caused by Quirrell as a distraction so that he could try and steal the thing being guarded by Fluffy. What if Harry is out there trying to stop Quirrell all by himself!" she hissed in a near-hysterical whisper.

"Well, what can we do?" Nevile asked, getting worried now.

"I don't know!" she moaned. "He made me promise that I'd stay in the Great Hall, no matter what, but we can't let him try to deal with whatever is going to happen, all on his own!"

"But if he knows what's going to happen, then he can probably stop it without any trouble, right?"

"There's no guarantee of that!"

"Are you suggesting that we go out there and look for him?"

"I don't knooow," she moaned again as she let her head fall onto the table.

Nevile stared at his friend with a sense of helplessness. He went to open his mouth and offer some form of reassurance or possibly a suggestion, but he was interrupted by the sound of the doors to the Great Hall being loudly thrown open and the sight of their Defense teacher running in and flailing wildly.

"TROLL! Troll in the dungeons!" he bellowed as he ran down the center towards the head table. "Thought you should know," he finished weakly, just before collapsing in a heap on the floor, apparently unconscious.

The great hall erupted in a state of utter panic and chaos.

Hermione looked up to the head table and saw Professor Snape whispering in a rush into the Headmaster's ear. Dumbledore nodded at him and seemed to say something back before standing up and raising his hands.

"SILENCE!"he bellowed, bringing quiet to the previously riotous din. "Everyone will remain seated and stay where you are. Prefects, watch after your fellow students. Teachers, come with me," he said as he rose to his feet and briskly walked towards the doors.

Hermione looked back at Nevile with utter panic in her eyes. "What about Harry!" she hissed.

Nevile just shrugged helplessly.

"Well, I'm not just going to leave him out there to fend for himself!" she said, standing to her feet.

"But he's not on his own if the teachers are out there," Nevile said, "and we don't even know where he might be! What if we run into the troll!"

"Hermione!" Ron said, coming over to where Nevile and Hermione had been seated at one end of the Gryffindor table. "Where's Harry?"

"Harry is out there trying to deal with the troll all by himself, like the heroic idiot that he is!" she growled.

"What!" Ron gasped.

"Harry saw this coming! He made me promise that I'd stay here and said he was going to go warn one of the professors, but I think he's actually trying to deal with the troll by himself!"

"That's crazy! He's going to get himself killed!"

"Exactly! We've got to go help him!" Hermione said.

"But Harry said to stay here," Nevile insisted again.

"That's because Harry thinks the whole world's responsibilities rest on his shoulders! We're his friends and he needs us!" Hermione responded. "I'm going to try and find him!"

Hermione began to make her way through the throngs of students and Ron instantly followed. Neville whimpered and hesitated for a second before groaning and racing after the other two.

– – –

Harry raced down the stairs with Addy wrapped around his wrist. He was hoping to avoid interacting with the troll at all, but knew if it came to it and he had no other choice, the only way he'd have a fighting chance is if he had her with him. The trip up to Gryffindor tower had taken longer than he'd expected since he'd had to dodge Peeves at one point, and then one of the moving staircases had spontaneously decided to swivel him to the third floor. He'd had no choice but to back track and take one of the hidden passageways to get where he needed to go.

But now he was prepared and racing back towards the great hall. He ducked behind a tapestry and through a passageway, emerging on the first floor, just down the hall from the entrance to the great hall. He was just about to race towards the doors when the hairs stood up on the back of his neck and his breath caught in his chest.

The feeling on unease was significant and he knew it was _not_ a good sign. He stopped and stood frozen in place as he let his eyes go unfocused and concentrated on the immediately coming events.

He gasped as a the fuzzy images updated and flitted through his mind's eye.

"Damn it!" He growled as he turned around and ran back the way he came.

He'd probably just missed them, actually. None of his friends were nearly as familiar with the castle and it's many secret corridors as he was. While he was taking a shortcut behind a couple tapestries, his friends had raced out through the main corridors to go looking... _for him!_

He still had a chance of intercepting them before any of them encountered the blasted troll.

Harry flew out from behind the tapestry and raced down the corridor in the direction of where he knew his friends would be appearing any minute. He rounded a corner and came to a stop, bending over and huffing slightly as he twisted his head from side to side, searching for any sign of them.

_Nothing..._

There was no sign of them anywhere. Harry was about to turn down the hall that would take him back towards the Great Hall through more traditional passageways when he heard a scream echo through the corridor.

A shiver shot down Harry's spine and he took off towards the sound. He skidded to a halt around a corner just in time to see Ron ducking out from under an enormous wooden club and sliding behind a suit a armor at the same time as Nevile and Hermione ducked behind a large stone gargoyle on the other side of the hall. There, in the center of the large open corridor was an enormous mountain troll.

"Blast it all!" Harry ground out in frustration as he took off at a sprint and extended his hand out before him.

_§Locomotor Mortis§_he hissed as he aimed the palm of his hand at the trolls legs. A twirl of yellow light shot from his outstretched hand and encompassed the troll's feet and the floor directly below them. The troll tried to lift it's foot to take one more step towards Ron but jerked awkwardly for a moment before looking down at it's legs with a bewildered expression.

The troll wobbled slightly as it tried to regain it's balance. It's enormous arms, and equally enormous giant wooden club still gave it ample room to attack his friends, but this at least distracted it for a moment.

"Get the hell out of there!" he bellowed to his friends.

"Harry!" Hermione shrieked as she began to scramble towards him. Ron looked from the troll to Harry and back again before he began to desperately crawl across the floor as well.

Nevile, unfortunately appeared frozen in panic.

"Nev! Come _on!_" Harry ground out desperately. Hermione stopped and looked over her shoulder, realizing that she was leaving someone behind. "Nevile!" she yelled, but the boy he couldn't seem to take his eyes of of the gigantic troll that stood only a few feet from him.

Said troll, seemed to have just regained its center of gravity and was now in the motions of twisting around and aiming his club directly at the terrified boy to his left.

_§Flippendo!§_Harry hissed out as he flicked his wrist at the club. It glowed blue for a second and then went flying backwards, right out of the troll's hand. The troll's arm continued to move forward for a moment before it paused and looked at it's empty hand with confusion.

"_NEVILE!"_ Harry growled. "Hermione! Grab him!"

Hermione ran over and grabbed the collar of Nevile's rob and tugged. His eyes finally seemed to come back into focused and he tore his eyes away from the giant monster and looked at Hermione. He gasped and finally found his legs as he and Hermione began to scamper towards Ron, who was standing a few feet beside Harry, and watching everything transpire in utter horror.

The troll's brain began to tick again and it watched the two retreating forms with the dawning realization that they were escaping him. He twisted around and bent back to pick the club back up and began to swing it around. It smashed into the stone floor a foot from Hermione and she yelped in shock. The troll picked the club back up, preparing for another pass.

_§Secare!§_Harry yelled as he pointed his finger at the arm, holding the club and made a slashing motion. An aqua arc of light shot from his finger and straight through the troll's bicep.

The troll's head whipped back and it howled out in pain as dark colored blood spurted from a deep cut through more than half of it's arm.

Harry knew that the spell wouldn't be powerful enough to cut through the troll's reinforced bones, but the muscle and skin was toast. The troll dropped it's club in a great thud and reached around with it's good arm to hold onto the gaping would.

Hermione shrieked as the club crashed to the ground a mere foot from her, but quickly scrambled away, dragging a stunned Nevile beside her.

Harry could hear the sounds of foot steps thundering down the hall and turned around just in time to see Dumbledore, Minerva, and Flitwick emerge and come racing towards them.

Minerva's eyes went as wide as saucers as she took in the sight of the moaning troll, stuck to the floor and desperately holding onto it's arm, that was obviously bleeding all over the floor.

Dumbledore quickly strode past Harry and his friends, rose his wand and with the flick of his wrist and an unidentified nonverbal spell, the troll's eyes rolled up into the back of it's head and it fell over unconscious.

"Wish I knew _that_ spell," Harry grumbled under his breath as he finally released a sigh of relief and turned to face his traumatized, panting friends.

"Why the bloody hell are you here!" he bellowed. "You promised you'd stay in the great hall!"

"We came looking for you! We couldn't let you take on a _troll_ by yourself!" Hermione yelled.

"I wasn't _going to!_ I was on my way back to the Great Hall – in fact, I was almost there when I realized that the three of you were about to run into the damn troll all by yourselves! I had to come after you or else you three were going to end up splattered on the floor!"

Hermione's mouth floundered helplessly, but finally she just shut it and hung her head. "I'm sorry Harry," she said apologetically. "We were worried about you. You always act like the world's problems are entirely your responsibility and I was afraid that you were going to try and do something about this on your own."

"Well, I wasn't. And even if I was it doesn't change the fact that I told you to stay in the Great Hall _for a reason!_Next time I make you promise to stay somewhere, _do it!_ Okay? I mean, I didn't say 'promise me you'll stay in the great hall' just for shits and giggles, you know!"

"I thought you were going to try and stop the troll by yourself! You can't do these things alone!"

"I told you I was coming back!"

"Why did you take so long then!" Hermione shouted back defensively.

"I –" Harry began to speak when the sound of someone clearing their throat drew their attention to the group of gathered professors who were glaring at them disapprovingly.

Harry gaped at them dumbly and finally gave a defeated sigh. "I'm sorry Professors. I really didn't intend for this to happen," Harry said bowing his head dejectedly.

Hermione quickly took a step forward, standing between Harry and their teachers. "It's my fault. If you're going to punish someone, it should be me. Harry told me that something was going to happen today and told me to stay in the Great Hall, but I didn't listen. Nevile and Ron left because of me. If Harry hadn't shown up, we probably would have gotten k-killed." Hermione swallowed a thick lump in her throat.

Professor Flitwick, who had been standing beside the unconscious troll and surveying the damage came back to the group and looked around the first years excitedly. "So which one of you was responsible for the damage inflicted upon our smelly friend over there?" he asked the group, while his eyes landed directly upon Harry.

"Harry did it all," Ron said. "He cast three different spells. I don't know what they were though."

"The first spell he cast locked the trolls legs so it couldn't move. The second one knocked the club right out of it's hand and onto the floor, but it picked it back up a moment later and smashed the floor in front of us," Hermione said, looking down at her hands, which she had clasped in front of her.

"It was about to take another swing at us when Harry cast the last spell that sliced up it's arm like that. That made it drop the club and stop attacking us," Nevile said finally.

"Truly incredible spellwork!" Flitwick exclaimed. A cutting jinx powerful enough to cut through _troll flesh_ would require quite a significant bit of power behind it. Impressive work, Mr. Potter! What spell was it, pray tell?"

"Uh..." Harry stuttered as his mouth floundered a bit. "It was _Sacare_," he mumbled as he made sure the sleeve of his robes was hanging low enough on his arm to hide Addy, who was still wound around his wrist.

"_Sacare!_" Flitwick squeaked. "From a first year! Incredible!"

"Yes, well be that as it may," Minerva interrupted with a much more reprimanding tone, "it does not excuse the four of you from punishment."

"It was all my fault, Professor," Hermione insisted loudly again. "If anyone would be punished, it's me."

"Yes, however Mr. Weasley and Mr. Longbottom still followed you of their own will, despite instructions to remain in the Great Hall," Minerva stated coolly. Ron and Nevile's faces paled even further and both looked as if they were moments away from being ill.

"Am I to understand that the group of you came out here because you were worried about Mr. Potter?" Minerva asked the three rather green-looking Gryffindors.

They looked up at her and nodded their heads slowly. "Harry was missing from the Great Hall when Professor Quirrell came in and announced the troll," Hermione said, still averting her gaze towards the floor.

"We were afraid that Harry would run into the troll by himself and get hurt," Ron said next.

"We couldn't let him face it alone," Nevile whimpered.

"And what about you, Mr. Potter? Why were you absent from the Great Hall?"

Harry looked up and sighed. "I went to warn Professor Snape about the troll about a half an hour before the feast began."

"You had a vision about it?" Flitwick squeaked with curious excitement in his eyes.

"Oh, yeah. I saw it coming pretty early... anyway, I told Snape about it and asked that he go to the Great Hall and warn Professor Dumbledore –"

The two teachers turned their heads to looked at Dumbledore who nodded his head. "As he did."

"– but while he was going to the Great Hall, I had to run back up to Gryffindor tower to grab something and then I was going to head back down to the hall. It took longer than I expected it to because I ran into Peeves and then one of the darned staircases decided to move while I was on it... I was just about to get back to the Great Hall when I realized that Hermione, Ron, and Nevile had already left to look for me. That's when I took out after them."

"You realized they'd left?" Dumbledore asked in a gentle prod.

"I sort of got an _update_. I got a flash of the three of them running into the troll, all alone..."

"So you came after them to help?" Dumbledore continued with a twinkle to his eyes.

"That's right sir."

"Well I think we now have a reasonable idea of what has happened here tonight," Dumbledore said as he looked down upon the four gathered first years before him. "Seeing as how this was a first infraction, and that any reckless behavior was undertaken with the intention of lending aid to a friend you thought to be in danger, I don't think that any detentions are warranted in this instance."

The jaws of all four students fell open slightly in stunned silence.

"In fact, I would say that Mr. Potter's deeds, both prior to the incident and after warrant praise, if anything. For your efforts in giving advanced warning to Professor Snape about the troll – fifteen points goes to Gryffindor house."

Harry blinked but wasn't honestly that surprised. His friends, however, seemed entirely dumbfounded by the turn of events.

"And," Minerva McGonagall began to speak now, drawing their attention to her, "for coming to the aid of friends when you feared that their lives might be in peril, five points, to _each_of you." Harry actually caught the slightest indication of her thin lips turning into a smile, but it was instantly gone, to be replaced by her regular stern expression.

"I would also like to add my two knuts!" Professor Flitwick pipped in excitedly. "For spectacular use of remarkably advanced magic for a first year student, and successfully fighting off a _fully grown mountain troll_ until help could arrive; twenty points to Mr. Potter!"

Harry's jaw dropped a bit now – even _he_hadn't expected that much. Ron's mouth was moving wordlessly as he did the math in his head. He turned his head and looked over at Nevile and Hermione with wide, excited eyes and mouthed _Fifty five points!_

Hermione rolled her eyes at him, but Nevile grinned widely.

"Now, why don't the four of you go to the Great Hall. I have a feeling that none of you have gotten a chance to eat anything tonight." Dumbledore said with a grin.

They nodded dumbly and quickly took off down the corridor.

"Come this way, guys," Harry said as he walked over to a tapestry and pulled it aside, revealing a hallway behind it.

"Whoa! I didn't know that was there!" Ron exclaimed.

"This is one of the reasons you guys missed me earlier. I was taking one of these passageways to get to the Great Hall while you all took the main corridors. We went right past each other," Harry sighed, shaking his head in exasperation.

"You really weren't going to try and take the troll on, all on your own?" Hermione asked weakly.

Harry shook his head and huffed. "No, of course not! I'm not _that_ mental! It's a fully grown mountain troll for Merlin's sake!"

"I really am sorry, Harry. I should have believed you when you said you'd come back. I just got so worried when you weren't already back even though Quirrell had already showed up... oh! Quirrell!" Hermione came to a sudden stop, causing Nevile to run into her back.

"Ofph... Sorry Hermione," he mumbled and flushed in embarrassment.

"Oh, it's fine, Nevile. But... Harry! What about Quirrell!"

"Well..." Harry began slowly, "Snape wasn't with Dumbledore and the others, so I would assume that he went to the third floor to guard the door like I suggested. Gosh, I hope he didn't get bit by Fluffy... I forgot to warn him about that."

"Wait... you went to _Snape?_" Ron gaped at him. "Hermione said that you went to warn a teacher... I assumed you'd go to Professor Dumbledore or... I don't know, maybe McGonagall, but _Snape!_"

"Snape was already suspicious of Quirrell and Quirrell knows that. If one of the _other_ teachers showed up at the door, Quirrell would start to wonder just how many of the teachers were getting suspicious of him and he might change his plans, and then I'd just be playing catch up. It needed to be Snape."

"But still... why not warn Dumbledore and just have him _send_ Snape?" Ron asked.

Harry shrugged. "A few different reasons... but mostly, Snape was still alone in his office. Dumbledore was already in the Great Hall and I wouldn't be able to warn him in private."

"Oh... okay," Ron said, still looking a bit confused, but mostly appeased.

The four resumed their journey and entered the Great Hall to a chorus of questions and curious stares.


	19. Book 1: Breakthrough

**Adopter's note: Hey guys, I'm back. Sorry for the multiple notices that you received. I was trying to add a heading to the chapters. Hm, let's see where did I put that list to... **

**Ah, first up, I really must apologize to whoever (especially those who reviewed) is patiently reading this fanfiction. I know that I had a fault in not uploading all of the original chapters at one go. I can't explain myself, but let's just put it as I was lacking in common sense. [Awkward] Er, well, I'll take note of my mistakes the best I can.**

**Next, this is the chapter that Athey didn't post. Well, it's a half chapter but I took off a bit at the end to continue in chapter 19. Although Athey says that this swings the story in the Hermione/Harry direction a bit, I think that the events are still a little vague for this to be definite. Granted, I may use this pairing if things continue to progress...**

**Third... I'm uploading Chapter 19 later, so you'll have to wait a bit!**

**Enjoy! **

**Akirina**

* * *

**Chapter 18: Breakthrough**

_It was warm and sunny. The glass doors to the veranda were open and a nice breeze was blowing into the bedroom, causing the gauzy curtains to billow lightly in the wind. Harry could taste and smell the salty sea air, and feel the warmth of the wind touching his face with feather-like gentleness. _

_He felt the bed shift as someone sat down on it and leaned over. He felt her soft lips press against his forehead and he smiled._

"_Morning sleepy head. Are you planning on getting up anytime soon?" she asked._

"_Mmmm... more sleep," he slurred lazily._

"_I remember a day when you were up before the sun," she chided._

"_Yeah, well I don't need to do that anymore, do I? So let me sleep."_

_He felt the bed shift some more and for the briefest of moments he actually thought she was leaving. He frowned for a second. She usually didn't give up that easily, and if he was being completely honest, he was ready to get up, he just wanted her to... persuade him to do it._

_The next thing he knew, a pillow was hitting him roughly in the face._

"_Hey!" he yelped as he shot up in bed and opened his bleary eyes, blinking away the sleep. He glared over at the woman, who was now laughing hysterically on the other side of the bed. "What was that for?" he grumbled._

"_I wanted you to get up."_

"_You didn't have to smack me with the pillow," he pouted._

"_Come on, Harry! I making breakfast! Me! Hurry up, or it's going to get cold! And I've got things planned for today."_

"_Uh oh... you cooked?" Harry said with mock horror in his voice._

"_Oh shut up, you prat!" she said, swatting at him playfully._

_Harry laughed as he dodged her assault and hopped out of the bed._

"_Let me just grab a quick shower and I'll be right out," he called as he made a dash for the bathroom._

_Ten minutes later, Harry walked out into the large open room that housed the open-air kitchen, dining area, and a sitting room. The walls were lined with large floor-to-ceiling windows, letting the warm sunlight shine into the spacious airy room._

_The patio doors were open and you could see a pristine sandy beach just beyond a nice wooden deck._

_Harry was only wearing his boxers and had a towel draped over his shoulders that he was running roughly through his black mop to try and absorb some of the dampness. He walked over behind Hermione, standing in the kitchen and swatted her on the bum. _

_She squeaked and turned back to glare at him, while he chuckled._

"_So what's the special occasion?" he asked as he leaned over her shoulder and pulled in a deep breath of the scent of the omelette cooking on the skillet, "I'm usually the one in the kitchen."_

_She turned around and gaped at him for a moment. "What's the occasion?" she shrieked incredulously. But Harry just stared at her and waited. "You really don't know?"_

_Harry frowned for a moment and his mind began to whirl. What was the date? Was it their anniversary? No... someone's birthday? No..._

"_Harry, it's the anniversary of the day you defeated Voldemort! How can you possibly forget that?" she yelled in obvious exasperation._

_He blinked._

"_Oh. Right," he said as it dawned on him. He chuckled and shrugged. "Forgot."_

_Hermione shook her head in disbelief and rolled her eyes at him. "You are utterly unbelievable, Harry James Potter!"_

"_Yeah, but you love me for it," he said as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer._

_She huffed and rolled her eyes at him, but the smile on her lips told him everything. "Yes, I do, but you're still a prat. Now let me go before the food burns."_

_He chuckled and gave her a quick peck on the lips before releasing her enough that she could turn around in his arms and face the stove again._

_He tightened his grip a bit again and leaned his head on her shoulder while she continued to work._

"_Love you," he whispered in her ear._

_She turned her head to the side slightly and smiled at him._

"_Love you too."_

– –

Harry's eyes opened and he found himself looking up at the gold and red canopy over his four-poster bed.

He wasn't violently jolted awake this morning like he had been, so often lately; he was just _awake_.

He laid there for a stunned moment as his mind processed his dream. A smile slowly spread across his face, growing wider than would seem logically possible. He pulled back the curtain slightly and looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was later than he usually got up. Hermione was probably already down in the common room waiting for him.

Harry leapt out of bed with extreme suddenness and bolted out the dorm room door and down the stairs. He was wearing some old comfortable sweat pants and a t-shirt so he saw no harm in rushing. He was just too excited to bother getting dressed. He needed to tell someone!

He came rushing down the stairs and Hermione turned around to greet him but stopped when she saw his attire.

"Harry, why aren't you ready–"

But she was cut off when Harry ran into her, wrapped his arms around her, actually _picked her up off the ground_, and spun around laughing.

"Harry! What the devil are you doing!" she shrieked, but couldn't help but laugh with him. He was just _so gleeful_ that it was contagious.

"Harry, what happened? What's going on?" she asked and he finally set her down and took a step back. He was positively_ beaming_ and radiating joy.

"I can do it!" he said.

"What? Do what?"

"I had a vision last night that happened _after_ I defeat him! _After!_"

"Harry, I really don't follow you. What are you on about?"

"I had a vision last night!"

"Yes Harry, you have visions every night. What was this one about?"

"Well, the vision itself wasn't necessarily eventful. It was during the summer. I was in bed, and you came in and woke me up, telling me that you'd made breakfast. After I'd showered, I asked you what the special occasion was, because, well... you don't cook, and you said it was because it was the anniversary of the day I defeated Voldemort. You even yelled at me for being so absentminded that I could actually _forget_ what day it was. You didn't say how many years the anniversary was, but I know it had to be at least a year after, but it was possibly longer. I would assume so if I was able to forget. I would think that even _I_ would remember the one-year anniversary.

"It's the furthest out vision I have _ever had_. I think we were 18 or 19 years old in it, but I'm not sure. It's just... it's incredible Hermione! It was _after! After I defeat him!_"

"Wait..." Hermione began with hesitant confusion, "you've never had a vision from afterwards, before?"

Harry shook his head forcefully, "No, never! I've never even seen a final battle. I've never seen myself fighting him, let alone winning, or anything that might happen afterwards. _Never._"

"But last night you had a vision of _after,_" she clarified.

"Yes!" Harry said, nodding enthusiastically and smiling widely.

"That's wonderful Harry. I'm not entirely sure if I get what all this means to _you_, but it definitely seems like it's a pretty big deal."

"It is, Hermione! I mean... my visions, what they show me is the _most likely_ outcome of whatever trajectory I'm on, in the current timeline. There are loads of different things that can and will pan out differently, but what I see is the _most likely_ outcome of my current path.

"All of my current visions still show me trying to fight him when I'm sixteen and seventeen years old – despite how dedicated I am to making sure he's killed off in my 3rd or 4th years. I won't give up just because of that, though. I mean, it's probably terribly likely that I'll succeed that early, but it's still possible, so I'm still going to try. But, anyway, don't you see what _this dream_ means?"

Hermione looked thoughtful and was about to say something when she stopped herself. "Why don't you tell me," she said, opting to just let Harry continue on his own.

"It means that the _most likely outcome _is that I win! I kill him, and I _survive it_! I'm going to survive it!" he exclaimed, almost jumping in place with his own excitement and elation.

"Hermione," he continued, calming down the slightest bit, but the relief on his face was extreme, "Hermione, I find a way to finish it without dying! I can do this, and not have to die," he said, the words coming out almost like a relieved sigh.

Hermione's brow furrowed and she frowned slightly. "You sound like you thought you had no choice but to die for this," she said with obvious concern in her voice.

Harry sighed, gave her a slightly sad and apologetic smile and shrugged. "I did," he admitted quietly as he turned and looked out one of the windows.

"You thought you _had to die_ to defeat Vol-Voldemort?" she asked, aghast.

Harry just shrugged again, still facing away from her.

"Why!" she all but shrieked.

Harry flinched slightly and heaved a heavy breath. "It's really complicated, honestly. And I'm not entirely ready to share it with anyone. I still have a lot of figuring out to do," he slowly turned around and faced her, but his expression was determined now. "But now I _know_ that it's possible to deal with it, without dying. I _know_ it's possible! I'm going to get it figured out and I'm going to survive this thing."

Harry turned back to the window and looked thoughtful. Hermione came up beside him and watched his face.

"Maybe this is why it takes me till I'm sixteen or seventeen," he mused quietly to himself.

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe it takes me that long to figure out how to do it without dying. I mean... I already know how to kill him now, if I'm willing to sacrifice myself in the process. I just... I just kept hoping I'd figure it out." Harry turned back and looked at her with so much hope and relief in his eyes that Hermione couldn't help but smile. "Now I know I can. I know I can and _will_ survive this."

Hermione nodded her head and gave him a soft encouraging smile. "Yes you will."

He smiled back at her and turned his face back to the window. The thoughtful expression was gone; replaced by the happy, relief-filled elation. Harry filled his lungs and let the air out slowly as he looked out the window and felt the warmth of the sunrise fall on his face.

"Harry?" Hermione's voice broke the silence after a moment.

"Hmm?" Harry replied.

"If we were eighteen or nineteen, and it was summer, then we weren't at Hogwarts."

"That's right," Harry said, turning his head to look at her, slightly confused by her comment.

"Where were we?"

"Oh... I think it was my beach house."

"Your beach house?"

"Yeah, it's on the coast of North Devon"

"You have a beach house." Hermione deadpanned with a single raised eyebrow.

"I own several properties. I've inherited all of the Potter estates and holdings. I'm the last one left alive, afterall. It used to be a rather large and very wealthy family at one point, but most of them... well, _all_ them, actually; either died of old age, or were killed in the last war. My parents were the last of them killed, but my dad's parents were both killed in his seventh year at Hogwarts. Then his uncle and cousins the year after that."

Hermione went to say something but choked on her own breath for a moment. "I'm sorry," she whispered once she found her voice.

Harry just shrugged. "It's alright."

Hermione doubted that it really was actually_ 'alright'_, but she let the matter drop. There was something else chewing at the back of her brain and she was wondering how to ask, or if she was just being silly and over-analyzing the details.

"Harry?" Hermione began again after an awkward silence passed between them.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry if I'm being nosy, but I'm just... I don't know, but for some reason I'm curious about this vision of yours."

"Uh... that's fine," Harry said nervously.

"You said I woke you up and made you breakfast?"

"Yes."

"Where there any others there?"

"Others?"

"Well, I mean like, Neville or Ron or any other friends there?"

Harry paused and appeared to be mulling over his response. "No. It was just us."

"Oh."

Harry nervously glanced at Hermione out of the corner of his eye. He berated himself for giving her as many details about the vision as he had, but he'd been so excited that he hadn't thought to censor himself. Hermione was far too clever to not pick up on the details, the way she was. He should have seen this coming.

Harry sighed and opened his mouth to say something but stopped as he turned to look at Hermione.

She had a distant, thoughtful look to her, and she was gnawing on her lower lip between her teeth. The tiniest indication of a grin appeared as the corners of her mouth turned up; her lower lip still pulled in by her teeth. He had a sudden flash pass through his mind at the sight.

_An older Harry was laying on his side with his head propped up by his hand with his elbow bent on the pillow. Laying beside him was an equally older Hermione. She was laying on her back, but propped up slightly by a number of pillows. She had a book in her hands and had her lip pulled between her teeth and a decidedly focused look to her as she read. _

_A slight smile turned up the corners of her mouth as she read something she apparently found amusing. Harry had the sudden need to kiss that lip she had held tightly between her teeth. He leaned over and stole a kiss, pulling her from her reading..._

Harry gasped and turned his head suddenly to look back out the window.

_Damn it Potter! You're eleven! She's twelve! Stop it! You're going to scare her off and then all those potentially happy future moments will just vanish!_

Harry shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts and get back into the mentality of his current younger reality. It was too easy to forget himself and start thinking _older_. He lived his nights as older incarnations of himself and it was incredibly easy to end up very confused from it all.

He refocused and turned to Hermione. "Hey, I'm going to run upstairs and get dressed. It's probably too late for a full jog, but we could still do our stretches and katas, and then catch breakfast. Sound good?"

"Hmm?" Hermione said, as she was pulled from her musings. "Oh, sure."

"Alright. I'll make it quick and be right back," Harry said as he turned and raced back up the stairs.

Hermione watched him disappear up the stairs and sighed.

"You're just being silly," she scolded herself as she turned back to sit down in one of the chairs and wait for her friend to return.


	20. Book 1: Fleeting Glimpses

**Adopter's note: Ok, this is the revised version. Loads of thanks to all those who reviewed! And I apologize for not uploading everything at one go, I wasn't really thinking much at that point of time. Although you might want to know that the Doc Manager only takes up 15 documents at one go. **

**To those who reviewed about spelling mistakes and errors in Athey's chapters, thanks! I'll go correct them as soon as possible.**

**Enjoy!**

**Akirina**

* * *

**Chapter 19: Fleeting Glimpses**

"Harry!" Ron ran up to them just as Hermione finished her set of katas. "Professor Snape says he wants to see you as soon as possible!"

Hermione whirled around to stare at Harry in surprise. "Professor Snape? Harry, are you hiding something from us?" She asked.

Harry chuckled. "Well… Maybe." He seemed unusually cheerful at the thought of seeing Professor Snape, the others noted. "However, this is about a different matter. I'm actually a little surprised that he would make this decision…"

"What is it?" Neville asked curiously.

"He's going to show me photos of my mum." Harry's eyes teared a little. "She's beautiful."

"Oh, Harry," Hermione murmured, moving over to lay a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder.

Harry rubbed at his eyes, removing all traces of tears. "All right, I've got to go. Professor Snape will be furious if I turned up late." He laughed, green eyes twinkling. "I'm so excited, though!" He bounced cheerfully on the balls of his feet.

Hermione shook her head at her friend's silliness and Neville smiled nervously, not that all enthusiastic about Professor Snape. The boy was still terrified of the man, although being with Harry during Potion's lesson had helped some.

Ron waited until Harry had bounced out of the room before he wrinkled his nose.

"Gah!" he exclaimed softly, "The git's being nice? Ew."

"Ron!" Hermione scolded, laughing slightly at his response. "You're being rude. At least feel happy for Harry; he hasn't seen his mother or father before, you know."

Ron grinned, "Well, I am glad for Harry. But Snape? I won't go near that man, he hates all Gryffindors. Except for Harry, that is. I won't want to risk myself, especially since Gred and Forge played all those pranks on him…"

"Ronald Weasley, you didn't have to wait until I'm out of the room before you said that, you know? I know what you're going to say!" Harry's voice drifted across the courtyard.

The three exchanged startled looks before they burst into laughter.

—

The soft knock on his door broke Severus Snape out of his memories.

"Enter." He called out; looking up from the big tome of photographs he had been going over. There were several smaller albums beside him, stacked in a neat pile and several loose photographs peeked out from between the pages of the albums. Small figures of a boy and girl could be seen on the photographs. Some were moving and others were still.

"Hello, sir," Harry peeked in, his green eyes regarding him solemnly with a small sparkle of excitement. "You sent Ron…?"

"Yes, Potter," Snape studied his student for a moment before he said, "I suspect you know why I called you here."

"Yes, I just saw it." Harry managed as calmly. "Thank you, Professor, for sharing the photographs with me." It wasn't as if he had the opportunity to look at photos of his parents every day.

Snape studied him for a moment longer before he turned his attention back to the huge album in front of him. He waved a hand at Lily's son, "Then you know what you can do and not do. I trust you'll know to leave when it is lunch time."

"Yes, sir," Harry moved nearer to the table and tugged one thick tome off it.

Snape watched Potter settle himself in a comfortable armchair near the warm fireplace that was the only source of heat in his cold room. If it were not for heating charms, he would have sat beside the boy.

Harry seemed to engross himself in the album, stopping several times to gaze off into space and then break out of it to continue with the album. Snape leaned back in his chair, dropping the pretence of seeming to drawing up memories of the past for studying Harry openly.

He had pondered about the enigma that was Harry Potter, son of his best friend and nemesis. Snape would have gladly continued hating the boy that was the son of the hated James Potter. But after all the months of having Occlumency lessons with the child, Snape had to admit that he had developed a grudging sense of respect for the boy. Unlike his father, Harry Potter was mature and determined to right his wrongs.

Snape wouldn't change his attitude towards Potter, but the knowledge that he was not like James Potter was good enough.

—

Snape cast a silent _tempus _charm, noting that it was time for lunch. He glanced over at Potter—Harry—and was surprised to see that the boy was not looking at the album in his lap. In fact, the album docilely sat closed on his lap while Harry was staring off into space. Snape felt a little unsettled by the blank expression on the boy's face. It made the child seem as if he had seen many terrible things and bore the burden like an adult.

The boy obviously was experiencing a vision, Snape thought, there was nothing he could do to help. He sighed and called, "Tullie." There was a loud pop as the house elf appeared in front of him. Snape glanced over at Potter again, feeling relieved and slightly concerned when he saw that the boy had not stirred.

"Yes, sir?" Tullie stared at him with big brown eyes. She had lived with his family for many generations but he had decided to let her work at Hogwarts since he was going to stay here for most of the year teaching students.

"I need you to prepare lunch for two. Bring pumpkin juice and tea." Snape told her and Tullie nodded before she disappeared with a loud pop. Snape continued to keep watch over Potter, waiting for him to regain his consciousness.

—

_It was the Quidditch match again. The spectators were cheering and screaming encouragement at the two Houses. The players launched themselves off the ground as the match started and Gryffindor was the first to score the point._

_Harry noted with surprise that he had some modicum of self-awareness in this vision. He hadn't thought that it would be possible. But he was confused; he'd had this vision many times, so why was this vision appearing again? He knew how the Quidditch match was going to turn out; he'd even seen the other possible consequences. He had not missed a single one._

"—_Gryffindor Seeker has caught the Snitch! **SLYTHERIN **wins! Five hundred to two hundred points—"_

"_PROFESSOR MCGONAGALL!" His vision suddenly zoomed in on a Third-year Gryffindor girl. She was approaching Professor McGonagall at a dead run. "The First Years, some of them are injured—"_

_Professor McGonagall's eyes widened in horror and she quickly instructed the Slytherin commentator to make the announcement for every student to return to their common rooms. Harry's vision continued to follow her until she came to the Hospital Wing where Professor Snape and Headmaster Dumbledore were._

"_What happened?" She asked Madam Poppy Pomfrey who had emerged from behind the green curtains that were blocking her new patients from sight._

"_I don't know, Minerva." Madam Pomfrey sighed. "Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley were injured by the Cruciatus Curse. Jean O'ville came across them as she was returning from the Library."_

"_Oh no, poor Harry," Professor McGonagall sank into a chair she conjured. "Are they going to be fine?"_

"_As fine as a child can be from having the Cruciatus Curse cast on them," Madam Pomfrey replied dryly. "Hermione and Ronald are fine, they were knocked out so they didn't suffer from the Cruiciatus Curse much. They can leave when they wake up. Neville, though…" she sighed, "I'm afraid he'll have to stay here for a few days. I need to keep him under observation. He was held under the curse much longer than the other two."_

"_Oh, Poppy…" Professor McGonagall's tone of sadness was unmistakable._

Harry snapped out of the vision, feeling rather shaken. He had never come across that vision before… What had happened to make it pop up? And to hold 11 year old children under the Cruciatus Curse… There was no other person who could do it except for Voldemort.

The question was why did he decide to change his plans? What was the cause for him to suddenly veer down this path?

—

"How was it?" Hermione questioned Harry as he entered the common room.

"Fabulous." Harry replied. "Mum's so beautiful. He had a few pictures of Dad, too. Although they weren't flattering."

"Oh, Harry," Hermione's eyes teared up a little.

"What?" Harry jumped at the sight of Hermione's teary eyes. "Hey, don't cry on me!" He quickly grabbed a few tissues and handed them to the girl.

"Mione, you're one strange girl." Ron commented as he scribbled something onto the parchment he held in his hands. Nibbling absently at his quill, he continued. "I've never seen anyone cry over another person's fortune to get a chance to see their parents' pictures."

"Don't be so rude, Ron." Neville chipped in; putting down the Herbology book he had gone to retrieve from Seamus. "Hermione's just being empathetic." Then he blushed as Hermione leaned over and hugged him in gratitude.

"So," Harry waited until their attention was focused on him, "Do you have any plans now?"

"No, I finished all my homework with Neville while waiting for you. Ron's still got his Potions essay to finish though. Fifteen inches left, right?" Hermione raised her eyebrow at the Weasley.

Ron groaned. "I don't understand how you can stand Potions. Even you, Neville!" He continued over their laughter.

"Well, mate, it's the way how you perceive the subject…" Neville started shyly. "And Harry's helped me to correct my misconceptions…"

Harry turned his attention away from the conversation, feeling a tugging feeling on his senses. Recognizing the cue for a vision to pop up, he did his best to arrange himself in a position that would make it seem as if he were listening to their conversation before he relaxed.

_The Weasley twins were passing by the statue of Gregory the Smarmy, wondering where their missing friend, Lee Jordan had gone to._

"_Where do you think Lee went to, Fred?" one of them asked. "I haven't seen him since breakfast."_

"_He did say he was going to find Quirrell to ask about a test that Quirrell graded wrongly…" the other replied. "But Quirrell said Lee left before lunch."_

"_And he said he was going to help us with our latest prank!" the first one who had spoken frowned. "What is he up to?"_

_An unmistakable groan distracted them from their conversations. Bewildered, the two looked at each other, fear passing through their eyes before they sprinted round the corner and spied a familiar person lying on the ground in front of them._

"_LEE!"_

"_Get Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall, quick!" the other of them shouted and the other dashed down the corridors._

"…Harry!"

Harry blinked, back to reality. Hermione had a knowing look on her face, although she looked slightly disturbed at how quickly Harry had zoned out.

"What happened, mate?" Ron asked, "You zoned out for a moment there."

"We'll talk about it later," Harry murmured, glancing around to make sure that no one had noticed him zoning out. No one was looking in their direction. Harry got up and hurried out of the Gryffindor common room, heading to the dormitories.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione asked softly as she entered the boy's dormitory with him. Ron and Neville had decided not to follow them or it would seem too suspicious.

"Lee Jordan's in danger." Harry replied shortly. "No time to explain. Hermione, I need you to find Madam McGonagall, tell her Lee Jordan's in danger. Get Neville or Ron to tell Madam Pomfrey that Lee Jordan is near the statue of Gregory the Smarmy."

She bit her lip, clearly wanting to ask why but she nodded her head and hurried out to pass on the message to the others.

_§Addy!§ _

_§Harry?§ _Addy slithered out from her hiding place under Harry'd bed. _§What's wrong?§_

_§Lee Jordan's injured.§ _Harry explained as he scooped her up and hurried out of the dormitory. He explained the vision he had seen to her as he ran to the fifth floor. He caught sight of the Weasley twins, who hadn't heard the groan yet.

"Harry!" one of the Weasley twins had caught sight of him. "What are you doing here?"

"Sorry, no time to explain," Harry apologized as he rounded the corner and headed for the injured Lee Jordan. The Weasley twins had followed him curiously and they now stood frozen, staring as Harry swiftly knelt down by Lee Jordan.

"Fred, George," Harry's commanding tone caught their attention. They met his serious green gaze and knew that Harry was going to tell them something that they could never release to the public. "I need you to keep everything that happens from now on a secret. Can you promise me that?"

"Yes." The twins answered immediately. Harry nodded and turned back to Lee Jordan. But still, they were surprised to hear the sibilant hisses that emitted from Harry's mouth.

_§Addy, what is his condition?§ _Harry asked as he turned his attention back to treating Lee Jordan.

_§He's been bitten by a snake,§ _Addy answered, _§I think a Boomslang bit him. We'll have to produce the antivenom soon. The venom is slow-acting, but it is fatal.§_

_§How do we find the Boomslang that bit him? I wasn't aware there were any in the castle.§ _Harry asked, frowning.

_§We'll deal with that later,§ _Addy replied. _§Cast the Fresis Spell on him, it will slow down the effects of the venom for now.§_

Harry nodded and muttered,_§Fresis Apico!§ _

Lee Jordan started to breath more easily and the colour came back to his cheeks. It wasn't over yet but this had to do for now. The arrival of Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall allowed Harry to take a step back. Madam Pomfrey would be able to handle this situation well enough.

He cast a glance at the Weasley twins, who nodded at him, seemingly having gotten their shock under control. Madam Pomfrey bustled Lee Jordan off to the Hospital Wing after Harry told her that Lee was poisoned by a snake while Professor McGonagall stared at them silently.

"What happened?" She asked. To their credit, the Weasley twins did not expose the knowledge that Harry was a Parselmouth, telling her that Harry had came along when they discovered Lee.

Professor McGonagall nodded her head. "You may return to the Common room. Don't spread this around yet. Potter, I hear your account. We'll head to the Hospital Wing as you narrate your side of the events to me."

—

As Harry finished his tale, they reached the Hospital Wing where Madam Pomfrey had managed to procure a team of Healers from St. Mungos to help her, so the Hospital Wing was full of hustle and bustle.

"I can't identify the snake that bit him!" one of the Healers cried in frustration, looking to Madam Pomfrey in frustration. "It's as if some spell is preventing me from casting diagnosis spells."

Harry raised a brow. He hadn't met any resistance when he cast his own diagnostic spells… But he had used Parseltongue, so that might have been a reason why his spells gave him results that the others could not get.

He slipped away from Professor McGonagall, which was easy because of the mayhem and headed for Madam Pomfrey who was trying to run her own spells on Lee. Halfway there, another Healer caught him and stopped him from approaching Lee.

"Look, I know what snake bit him!" Harry yelled in exasperation. "If you'd let me tell Madam Pomfrey, I'm sure Lee Jordan will get will soon!"

"Yeah, right," the Healer replied sarcastically. "Little children should stay out of adult business. Now, scat!"

Harry glared at him angrily, frustrated that this man would not listen to him. He had almost forgotten that he was 11 years old to anyone who saw him. Who would believe that this little boy could actually help anyone? As much as Harry could understand what the man thought, he could help but feel even more frustrated at how the Healer was treating him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Professor McGonagall notice that he was missing. He had to make it to Madam Pomfrey's side or he would never get to pass on the information that Lee Jordan had been bitten by a Boomslang.

He pretended to turn back, knowing that the Healer wore an expression of triumph when Harry turned to leave. As soon as he knew that the Healer had relaxed his guard, he slipped under the man's arm and ran to Madam Pomfrey. The man started, the smirk slipping off his face as he reached for Harry. Harry avoided his grab easily and reached Madam Pomfrey's side quickly.

"Madam Pomfrey, it's a Boomslang!" Harry gasped, grabbing onto Madam Pomfrey. "A Boomslang bit him!"

Madam Pomfrey turned to him and stared at him in surprise as the doors to the Hospital Wing was thrown open and Dumbledore walked in with two adults, probably Lee Jordan's parents, Harry thought. His thoughts were confirmed when the woman let out a wail upon seeing Lee Jordan. She made to approach her son but was stopped from disrupting the work of the Healers by her husband. Snape trailed behind them and headed to Madam Pomfrey as soon as he found her.

"Sir, it's a Boomslang," Harry turned to Snape as he approached. "Please, sir, believe me, it's a Boomslang that bit Lee Jordan."

Snape cast a glance at the patient on the bed before he turned back to Harry. "Come with me, Potter." He replied shortly.

Snape brought him to Madam Pomfrey's office where he put up privacy wards before he turned to Harry. "Is this one of your visions?" he questioned.

Harry hesitated. It had been Addy who had told him, but he wasn't about to let Snape know this. "Yes." He lied.

"Then how are we going to conjure up a Boomslang out of nowhere, I might ask?" Snape sneered. "There is a time limit, Potter."

Harry paused. He had known that it would take some time for them to find a Boomslang and extract its venom from it. But he knew that there was a spell that could conjure snakes, he just couldn't remember its incantation.

_§Serpensortia,§ _Addy hissed softly, tightening her coils around Harry's arm. _§That's the incantation.§_

– –

"Serpensortia."

Snape paused in the action of taking down the privacy wards. He looked at Harry, his face darkening slightly. "Excuse me?" he asked dangerously. The temperature of the room seemed to drop by several degrees.

Harry's green eyes bore into his own. The boy's eyes held a spark of determination and they were dark with the knowledge that only adults had.

"Serpensortia," Harry near whispered. "That's the incantation."

Snape studied Harry for a little more before he sneered, "Very well, Potter." Then he swept out of the room.

Harry released a shaky breath as he stared out of the window. Serpensortia… He had never thought that the spell would come into play…


	21. Book 1: Excuse

**Akirina: Hi all, I know I haven't been punctual on my updates. But anyways, here is the new chapter. Hopefully, I didn't do too dreadfully... I _might_ be facing a little author's block at the moment. And much of my time is being taken up by my part time job. Thankfully, I'll only be working until end of this month. Well, enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 20: Excuse**

"Did you hear what happened to Lee Jordan?"

"Heard that he was bitten by a snake… Absolutely terrible news…"

"They say Icarius Pollock is taking over Lee Jordan's commentator position for this Saturday's Quidditch match…"

"I think it was a Slytherin who wanted revenge… Snakes are the symbol of their house, aren't they…"

November approached with its dull grey weather, heralding the approach of winter. The Quidditch season was starting that week with a match between the two rival Houses, Slytherin and Gryffindor. Lee Jordan was still stuck in the Hospital Wing, under Madam Pomfrey's care. He was cured from the Boomslang's bite, but Madam Pomfrey thought that he could do with a bit more rest after the dreadful ordeal.

Lee was dealing fine with the fact that he had nearly died from a Boomslang's bite. He was a little shaky but he was in good spirits, especially with the Weasley twins daily visiting him with new pranks to plan and goods from the kitchens.

Harry had been fully interrogated by Snape during the privacy of their Occlumency lessons and Harry had tried to answer to the best of his abilities. He could not reveal too much, but what little he could tell Snape, he did.

Hermione, Ron and Neville had taken a little more trouble to deal with. Hermione was clearly scared by the prospect of someone nearly getting killed and the three of them were asking Harry to explain the situation more clearly to them.

Harry was forced to omit bits of his explanation that would obviously show the bits of information from the future. He had nearly given it away when Ron asked about Quirrell. It seemed that Ron was developing some suspicions about Quirrell for he had asked about getting Quirrell to prove that it wasn't he who had attacked Lee.

_§Harry,§ _Addy slid out from under his blankets. _§What are you worrying about?§_

_§What do I do, Addy?§_ Harry asked. _§Voldemort's plans are clearly changing. He's attacked Lee Jordan, someone who doesn't have anything to do with me and he's planning to attack Neville and the rest!§_

He had thought much about the vision that he had received and it was clear to him that Voldemort was after Neville. Neville was the next candidate of the prophecy so it was obvious that Voldemort's next target was him.

Addy thought for a bit, _§Well, I can't say that it isn't unexpected. You know that whatever you've been doing would have affected the future sooner or later.§_

_§I didn't think it would affect the future this quickly!§ _Harry muttered. _§I thought I still had some time before the Butterfly effect started…§_

_§What will you do now?§ _Addy asked. _§He'll aim for your friends during the Quidditch match.§_

_§No, that's not determined yet.§ _Harry said, _§I had another vision about the Quidditch match. It was the Weasley twins who were hurt in this one.§_

_§The Weasley twins?§_ Addy hissed in surprise. _§What do they have to do with anything at all?§_

_§No idea.§ _Harry replied. _§I'm thinking that I'll have to come up with a reason to excuse myself from the Quidditch match… I can't go on the broomstick, not without knowing that my friends will be safe for the time being. I had planned to allow events to proceed as they were, but seeing as how he is attacking other blatantly…§_

_§It makes one wonder why he attacked the boy at all.§ _Addy grumbled. _§Where are your friends?§_

_§They're meeting with the students who have karate lessons with me to tell them that we have to reschedule our karate lessons. I'm going to be busy for the next few days.§ _Harry replied absently as he thought over Addy's reply. Something in his gut had twisted when she wondered about Voldemort's motives for attacking Lee Jordan.

_§I've got it!§ _Harry leapt up. He was furious with himself, how could he not have thought about this earlier? It was obvious—too obvious why Lee Jordan would be attacked. Lee Jordan must have seen or heard something that would reveal the truth that Voldemort was Quirrell! And Voldemort had taken the fact that Slytherins and Gryffindors were hostile towards each other to place the blame on the Slytherins!

It was well thought that Harry was stunned that Voldemort had succeeded. Just the two Houses' hostility towards each other could allow Voldemort to get away with attacking a student that would have suspected him.

_§What is it, Harry?§ _Addy asked in concern.

_§It's Voldemort, don't you see?§ _Harry quickly explained what he had come up with to Addy. She hissed in agreement.

_§I must ask Madam Pomfrey to check for an Obliviate charm on Lee Jordan.§ _Harry muttered. "With this, surely Dumbledore can remove Quirrell from Hogwarts. It's much too dangerous for Quirrell to continue being here."

"Harry?" Neville popped his head into the dormitory room. "Ron and Hermione are back. Do you want to do Transfiguration homework with us?"

Harry stopped, staring at Neville for a moment before he shook his head. "I finished it earlier this week. Do you need help with it?"

Neville gnawed at his lip, "Well, it'd be nice to have you with us, you know. You do explanations better than Hermione, so it's easier to understand after you've explained things to Ron and I. Besides, Hermione likes talking to you about the more complex parts of Transfiguration when we're writing…"

Harry grinned at that. "I understand. I'll come down in a moment. Let me get my books first."

"Sure," Neville seemed to sigh in relief. "Oh yeah, Oliver Wood told me to tell you that he has arranged a practice session for tomorrow."

"Yeah, I know. Thank, Nev," Harry replied as he dug his books out from his bag. What was Ollie thinking, arranging a practice session before the Big Day? It would tire the players out and it was no doubt useless as they were already quite well prepared for the match.

The only problem was that Harry had to find a replacement so that he could prevent Quirrell from hurting anyone. The question was who was the most suitable for a replacement Seeker?

Maybe the Weasley twins would have some suggestions.

– –

"Fred, George," Harry greeted the team's two Beaters as he slid into a seat next to them. His year mates threw him slightly curious looks but they settled themselves further them the table. The Weasley twins had chosen to seat themselves near the end of the House table, which was a good thing since Harry wanted to speak to them in private. With a flick of his wand, Harry set up privacy wards.

"Hello, Harry," the twins replied in unison.

"What are you doing here—"

"—don't you have your little friends to seat with?"

"I might ask the same of you," Harry replied smoothly as he scooped mashed potatoes onto his plate. "How is Lee, anyway?"

"Spiffing fine—"

"—Just a little under weather." The twins replied cheerfully enough. "Thanks to you."

"We never to thank you for helping our friend—"

"—so belated thanks for saving Lee Jordan." They finished.

Harry swallowed the steak he was chewing before he replied. "No problem. Now, I need some help."

The twins narrowed their eyes at him.

"We'll be glad to be of help—"

"—just state what you need."

"I can't make it to Saturday's match." Harry stated, watching as the Weasley twins stared at him in shock.

"You can't mean it—"

"—How are we going to play without you?"

"That's my problem, actually," Harry started on his vegetables. "I need to know whether there is anyone in the House who is good enough at Quidditch and who has clearly been practicing at it."

The twins exchanged looks with each other. "It's not that there isn't—" "—but there isn't anyone who is as good as you. No one to guarantee victory as well as you do."

Harry nodded, "I understand," he answered. "But I really can't make it for the Quidditch match. I have a… pressing appointment."

"We'll get back to you about it." One of them finally replied. "But you're telling Oliver this yourself."

"Of course," Harry nodded at them as he stood up, "Thank you."

– –

"There has to be some reasonable excuse I can give Oliver for not being able to participate in the Quidditch match…" Harry mumbled as he entered the empty dormitories after a long day of lessons.

_§Harry, I have an idea about the excuse that you can give for skipping the match.§ _Addy came to his rescue as she slithered out from a corner of the room. Harry blinked.

_§Where did you come from, Addy?§ _Harry asked.

_§There is a hidden alcove in that corner,§ _Addy replied, nodding her head towards the dark corner. _§I found it earlier. It seems as if no one has gone there for a long time. It's very dusty.§_

"It must be because my bed is blocking sight of it…" Harry murmured to himself, "I bet there's some sort of illusion too…"

_§What excuse did you think up of?§ _He asked.

_§Broken arm.§ _Addy replied. _§You can pretend that you have a broken arm.§_

Harry frowned. Even if he did so, he would not be able to sneak it past Madam Pomfrey. Anyway, a broken arm could be healed with a wave of a wand, so how would that help him? Shaking his head at Addy, he rejected the idea. He crossed over to his bed to dump his bag on the covers and pulled some books out of his trunk. He had to finish reading the theory on Animagus transformations so that he could begin his lessons as soon as possible.

His thoughts wandered back to the subject of thinking up of an excuse for missing the Quidditch match. He was deep in his thoughts as he left the room so he missed the dark figure that slipped out behind him. He failed to notice that the door had not clicked shut when he started towards the staircase.

It was only when he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise up that he realized that something was wrong. Harry started to turn around. However, to his shock he found out that his feet were tightly bound together. He started to overbalance and his mind blanked out in surprise. He had never seen any incident like this happening in his future!

As the stone steps grew larger in his vision, Harry regained his wits to cast a levitating charm on himself. He almost thought that it had not worked and held out a hand to stop himself from colliding with the floor and felt a sharp pain race threw his arm and leg. Then the world turned black.

– –

White walls, white bed sheets… He was in the Hospital Wing. Harry squinted at the bright sun light flooding through windows as he sat up. Why was he here? What had happened? Then he remembered. Addy had tripped him and he had fell down the stairs. Someone must have called Professor McGonagall, for he could not remember anything after that.

Why had Addy done that? Harry scrunched his brows together in frustration. While it had certainly landed him in the Hospital Wing, it would not guarantee him leave from the Quidditch match.

"Well, Mr. Potter, you're finally awake!" Madam Pomfrey bustled into the Hospital Wing. "You gave your friends a nasty shock when you tumbled down the stairs like that."

"Madam Pomfrey," Harry greeted as he watched her levitate a tray of food over to him. "What time is it?"

"Oh, child," Madam Pomfrey frowned at him. "You're not planning to go to class in that state, are you? Granted, the broken arm and leg were easily cured but I'll not have a patient return to his lessons unless he is fully rested. I bet you tripped in your state of tiredness and fell down the stairs!"

"But—" Harry started out of habit before he stopped and gaped at her. Addy's stunt actually worked? They were actually buying the story that he had 'collapsed' down the stairs in his 'state of exhaustion'?

"No buts, child," Madam Pomfrey wagged her finger at him. "Now, you're to be excused from that Quidditch match as well. No strenuous exercise until I deem you recovered. And that means you're to stay here until I see fit."

Harry looked down to keep up his act. He had his excuse to miss the Quidditch match, but he was to be kept in the Hospital Wing until the Quidditch match was over. What fun, he thought drily. Well, he could get the others to take notes for him and his homework.

As Harry finished his lunch—it was already afternoon, he discovered—Oliver Wood came into the Hospital Wing with his three friends.

Oliver looked unhappy as he stopped in front of Harry's bed. He studied Harry carefully before he spoke, "Harry, are you alright? Madam Pomfrey says you're not to participate in the Quidditch match." Oliver scowled.

"I'm fine, Ollie." Harry reassured him, "Just tired, that's all."

"And he's staying in here until I deem him ready to leave," Madam Pomfrey declared firmly as she entered the infirmary and removed the tray from Harry.

Oliver scowled even harder but he left the subject alone. "We've found a replacement Seeker, anyway." He told Harry. "Ian McPhil is playing since he was the previous reserve Seeker. We haven't found a reserve Seeker, but if he does well for this match, I'll make him the reserve."

"That's good," Harry murmured. Oliver nodded and his scowl eased.

"Get some rest, Potter," he told the Seeker and left the infirmary.

Neville, Ron and Hermione came forward then, handing his notes and homework for him from the morning lessons to complete. Harry was relieved that he knew most of what had been taught, so it wasn't going to be a struggle for him to catch up with his lessons.

Neville was worried for the upcoming Potions lesson as that would mean that he would be getting into a lot of trouble with Professor Snape. Harry was the one who usually stopped him from making mistakes, so what was going to happen if Harry was not there?

Neville shuddered to think of the outcome.

– –

"Longbottom, since your partner isn't here, you'll be working alone." Snape sneered at the frightened boy, "Surely you can manage one hour without him?"

"Y-yes, Professor." Neville trembled slightly.

Snape swept away from the boy, pointing his wand at the board. "You'll be doing the Cure for Boils today. Make sure that you add the porcupine quills after you've put the cauldron aside to cool."

Neville scrambled to write the instructions down, praying that he would not make a mistake for the entire lesson.

– –

"Oh my, what happened to Mr. Longbottom?"

Harry was jolted from his afternoon doze as the doors to the Hospital Wing opened. He groped for his spectacles—they had not survived the accident but Hermione had repaired them—and put them on, turning towards the newcomers.

Dean Thomas was holding Neville, who was moaning. Harry noticed with a start that Neville had erupted in boils and remembered the incident that Neville was supposed to have for the first Potions lesson. They had been doing the Boil-Cure Potion then… They hadn't done that potion for the Potions lesson, much to his surprise. Instead, they had concocted the antidote for common poisons instead.

"Malfoy threw porcupine quills into Neville's cauldron when Neville was took it off the fire. Since it wasn't cooled, the potion exploded and Neville was the victim of the whole prank." Dean told her as she levitated to an infirmary bed.

"I see," Madam Pomfrey started to gather potions for Neville. "Go on back to class, Mr. Thomas. I'll deal with Neville's injury."

"Yes, Madam Pomfrey," Dean quickly retreated.

Harry seethed at the news of Neville being ambushed by Draco. He had warned the blonde that if he picked on Neville again, he would seek revenge. Granted, Draco had to meet the expectations of his House, so he knew that Draco could not put off ambushing Gryffindors for long. So it was not unexpected that Neville would get hurt sooner or later. Harry just wished that Draco would realize that he had a choice; he could change his Housemates' views if he tried hard enough. Harry had seen that in a possible future.

"How is he, Madam Pomfrey?" Harry forced out as he watched Madam Pomfrey administer Neville with potions and salves.

"Well, he might have to stay here for a day. These boils are not going to go down any time soon… I'll need to drain them and then administer the Healing salve again…" Madam Pomfrey answered. "He'll be fine by tomorrow, I believe."

Harry sighed. At least Neville would be out of danger, he thought. The only ones who were in danger were the Weasley twins, Ron and Hermione. Maybe Oliver, if he started to suspect Quirrell. Speaking of the Weasley twins, their friend, Lee Jordan…

"Madam Pomfrey, where's Lee? I haven't seen him ever since I woke up." Harry inquired.

"Mr. Jordan?" Madam Pomfrey turned to stare at him as she finished applying the salve to Neville's boils. "He was discharged this morning. I determined him fit enough to leave the Hospital Wing and he took off happily enough.

"Now, talking about Mr. Jordan, Mr. Potter, I'll have to ask you how did you know that he was bitten by a Boomslang?" Madam Pomfrey asked as she screwed the lid of a jar tightly back and carried the bottles back to her cupboard.

"I thought Dumbledore would have had mentioned it to you…" Harry muttered. "I'm a Seer."

Madam Pomfrey stared at him in disbelief. "A Seer? Goodness, I haven't—A Seer, truly? Not like a fraud like Sybil Trelawney?"

Harry scoffed. "No, she's a prophet. She's not a Seer."

"I don't see the difference."

"Never mind," Harry quickly interjected, "Madam Pomfrey, did you check Lee Jordan for any signs of the Obliviate charm?"

"The Obliviate charm?" Madam Pomfrey looked confused. "No, I didn't think I would need to check whether he had been Obliviated. The child was bit by a snake—a Boomslang, at that—why would I need to check him for an Obliviate charm?"

Harry sighed and shook his head, turning away. It would do him no good to ask Madam Pomfrey to call Lee Jordan back. The boy would never be willing to come into the Hospital Wing. He didn't want to reveal his Seer abilities to anyone else, either.

"It's nothing, Madam Pomfrey," Harry dismissed the issue and turned to look at Neville, who was resting fitfully now. He idly wondered what punishment Snape would come up with for the both of them.

– –

"Oh, Neville," Hermione anxiously tugged at her book strap as she entered the infirmary with Ron. "Professor Snape says that you and Harry are to turn up for detention next Monday. He wants a forty inch essay on the importance of adding the porcupine quills to the potion after it has cooled."

"The git even took twenty points away because Neville's cauldron blew up." Ron grumbled as he sat between Harry's and Neville's beds.

"That's not nice, Ron," Harry pointed out as he scratched something out on his parchment. Neville had paled at the news Hermione brought.

"Gran will be displeased to learn that I've blown up my first cauldron. I was hoping that Potions would pass without any mishaps…" Neville mumbled to himself.

Harry put his parchment and quill, seemingly done with his work. "Nev," he started, "I'm giving you Potions lessons every Sunday morning. Don't you think you're improving?"

"No offense, Harry," Neville replied, "But I freeze up every time I see Professor Snape. I can't work with him breathing down my neck."

"You're improving in Potions, though," Harry pointed out. "I bet you'll know the answer if I asked you what are the dangers of adding porcupine quills to any warm solutions."

"Well, an explosion, from what happened this afternoon," Neville muttered. "But an explosion is really the mildest consequence. If the potion was brewed badly, the explosion may cause a crater to form and the brewer and any others in the region may be harmed as the potion will cause magical burns. Magical burns are resistant to any form of magical treatment and in some cases, they may worsen if healing charms are attempted. The patient will have to endure a full month of torture before the burns heal completely."

"There," Harry pointed out triumphantly. "You just proved yourself wrong."

Neville looked stunned and even Hermione was staring at him in shock. A few months ago, Neville couldn't even remember what a bezoar was and he couldn't answer a simple question about the importance of adding potion ingredients at the specific timings. And now, he was able to answer a difficult question about porcupine quills. Even Hermione didn't know that magical burns could result from a bad explosion from a badly made potion.

"I-I suppose you're right, Harry," Neville whispered in disbelief. Then he broke out into a relieved grin. "I suppose all I need to work on is my self confidence, huh."

Ron laughed, "No joke, mate!" He clapped Neville on the shoulder and apologized when Neville cringed in pain for the badly-done potion had managed to splatter on the shoulder that Ron had hit. Hermione started to scold Ron, who mumbled apologies under his breath—to no one now—just to stop Hermione from admonishing him like a kid.

Harry watched him from his position in bed, knowing that this was one thing that he would never allow no one—not even Voldemort or Fate—to take away from him.


End file.
